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THE  ANCIENT  CITY: 


A.  STUDY 


ON  THE 


RELIGION,  LAWS,  AND  INSTITUTIONS 

OF 

GREECE  AND  ROME. 


BY 

FUSTEL  DE  COULANGES. 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  LATEST  FRENCH  EDITION 
By  WILLARD  SMALL. 


TENTH  EDITION. 


BOSTON: 

LEE  AND  SHEPARD. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873, 
By  WILLARD  SMALL, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Copyright,  1901,  by  Willard  Small. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION. 

PAO  B 

Necessity  of  studying  the  oldest  Beliefs  of  the  Ancients  in 

order  to  understand  their  Institutions .  9 

BOOK  FIRST. 

ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


CHAPTER 

I.  Notions  about  the  Soul  and  Death .  15 

II.  The  Worship  of  the  Dead .  23' 

III.  The  Sacred  Fire .  29 

IV.  The  Domestic  Religion .  41 


BOOK  SECOND. 

THE  FAMILY. 

CHAPTER 

I.  Religion  was  the  constituent  Principle  of  the  an¬ 
cient  Family .  49 

II.  Marnage  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans .  53 

III.  The  Continuity  of  the  Family.  Celibacy  forbidden. 
Divorce  in  Case  of  Sterility.  Inequality  be¬ 
tween  the  Son  and  the  Daughter .  61 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

IV.  Adoption  and  Emancipation .  68 

V.  Kinship.  What  the  Romans  called  Agnation.  .  .  71 

VI.  The  Right  ot  Property .  76 

VII.  The  Right  of  Succession .  93 

1.  Nature  and  Principle  of  the  Right  of  Succes¬ 

sion  among  the  Ancients .  93 

2.  The  Son,  not  the  Daughter,  inherits .  95 

3.  Collateral  Succession . 100 

4.  Effects  of  Adoption  and  Emancipation.  .  .  .  103 

5.  Wills  were  not  known  originally . 104 

6.  The  Right  of  Primogeniture . 107 

VIII.  Authority  in  the  Family . Ill 

1.  Principle  and  Nature  of  Paternal  Power 

among  the  Ancients . Ill 

2.  Enumeration  of  the  Rights  composing  the  Pa¬ 

ternal  Power . 117 

IX.  Morals  of  the  Ancient  Family . 123 

X.  The  Gens  at  Rome  and  in  Greece . 131 

1.  What  we  learn  of  the  Gens  from  Ancient  Doc¬ 

uments . 134 

2.  An  Examination  of  the  Opinions  that  have 

been  offered  to  explain  the  Roman  Gens.  .  138 

3.  The  Gens  was  nothing  but  the  Family  still 

holding  to  its  primitive  Organization  and 
its  Unity . .  .  141 

4.  The  Family  (Gens)  was  at  first  the  only  Form 

of  Society . 146 


CONTENTS.  5 

BOOK  THIRD. 

THE  CITY. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Phratry  and  the  Cury.  The  Tribe . 154 

II.  New  Religious  Beliefs . 159 

1.  The  Gods  of  Physical  Nature . 159 

2.  Relation  of  this  Religion  to  the  Development  \ 

of  Human  Society . 161 

III.  The  City  is  formed . 167 

IV.  The  City.  Urbs . 177 

V.  Worship  of  the  Founder.  Legend  of  Æneas.  .  .  188 

VI.  The  Gods  of  the  City . 193 

VII.  The  Religion  of  the  City . 205 

1.  The  Public  Meals . 205 

2.  The  Festivals  and  the  Calendar . 210 

3.  The  Census . 213 

4.  Religion  in  the  Assembly,  in  the  Senate,  in  the 

Tribunal,  in  the  Army.  The  Triumph.  .  .  216 

VIII.  The  Rituals  and  the  Annals . 222 

IX.  Government  of  the  City.  The  King . 231 

1.  Religious  Authority  of  the  King . 231 

2.  Political  Authority  of  the  King . 235 

X.  The  Magistracy . 239 

XI.  The  Law . 248 

XII.  The  Citizen  and  the  Stranger . 258 

XIII.  Patriotism.  Exile.  . . 264 

XXV.  The  Municipal  Spirit .  268 

XV.  Relations  between  the  Cities.  War.  Peace.  The 

Alliance  of  the  Gods . 273 

XVI.  The  Roman.  The  Athenian . 280 

XVII.  Omnipotence  of  the  State.  The  Ancients  knew 

nothing  of  Individual  Liberty . 293 


6 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

REVOLUTIONS. 

OHAPTEK  PAGE 

I.  Patricians  and  Clients . 299 

II.  The  Plebeians . a07 

III.  First  Revolution . 314 

1.  The  Political  Power  is  taken  from  the  Kings, 

who  still  retain  their  Religious  Authority.  .  314 

2.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Sparta . 316 

3.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Athens . 319 

4.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Rome . 324 

IV.  The  Aristocracy  govern  the  Cities . 330 


V.  Second  Revolution.  Changes  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  Family.  The  Right  of  Primogeniture 

disappears.  The  Gens  is  dismembered . 336 

VI.  The  Clients  are  Freed . 341 

1.  What  Clientship  was  at  ûrst,  and  how  it  was 

transformed . 341 

2.  Clientship  disappears  at  Athens.  The  Work 

of  Solon . 349 

3.  Transformation  of  Clientship  at  Rome.  .  .  .  354 

VII.  Third  Revolution.  Plebs  enter  the  Citv . 36G 

1.  General  History  of  this  Revolution . 360 

2.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Athens . 372 

3.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Rome . 379 

VIII.  Changes  in  Private  Law.  Code  of  the  Twelve 


Tables.  Code  of  Solon . 410 

IX.  The  New  Principle  of  Government.  The  Public 

Interest  and  the  Suffrage . 423 

X.  An  Aristocracy  of  Wealth  attempts  to  establish  it¬ 
self.  Establishment  of  the  Democracy.  Fourth 
Revolution . 430 


CONTENTS. 


7 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

XI.  Rules  of  the  Democratic  Government.  Examples 

of  Athenian  Democracy . 439 

XII.  Rich  and  Poor.  The  Democracy  falls.  Popular 

Tyrants . 449 

XIII.  Revolutions  of  Sparta . 458 


ROOK  FIFTH. 

THE  MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 

I.  New  Beliefs.  Philosophy  changes  the  Principles 

and  Rules  of  Politics . 470 

II.  The  Roman  Conquest . 481 

1.  A  few  Words  on  the  Origin  and  Population 

of  Rome . 482 


2.  First  Aggrandizement  of  Rome  (753-350  B.  C.)  480 

3.  How  Rome  acquired  Empire  (350-140  B.  C.).  490 

4.  Rome  everywhere  destroys  the  Municipal 


System . 500 

6.  The  Conquered  Nations  successively  enter  the 

Roman  City . 608 

IIL  Christianity  changes  the  Conditions  of  Govern¬ 
ment . 519 


*  m 


THE  ANCIENT  CITY. 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  Necessity  of  studying  the  earliest  Beliefs  of  the  An¬ 
cients  in  order  to  understand  their  Institutions. 

It  is  proposed  here  to  show  upon  what  principles 
and  by  what  rules  Greek  and  Roman  society  was  gov¬ 
erned.  We  unite  in  the  same  study  both  the  Greeks 
and  the  Romans,  because  these  two  peoples,  who  were 
two  branches  of  a  single  race,  and  who  spoke  two 
idioms  of  a  single  language,  also  had  the  same  insti¬ 
tutions  and  the  same  principles  of  government,  and 
passed  through  a  series  of  similar  revolutions. 

We  shall  attempt  to  set  in  a  clear  light  the  radi¬ 
cal  and  essential  differences  which  at  all  times  distin¬ 
guished  these  ancient  peoples  from  modern  societies. 
In  our  system  of  education,  we  live  from  infancy  in 
the  midst  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  become  ac¬ 
customed  continually  to  compare  them  with  ourselves, 
to  judge  of  their  history  by  our  own,  and  to  explain 
our  revolutions  by  theirs.  What  we  have  received 
from  them  leads  us  to  believe  that  we  resemble  them. 
We  have  some  difficulty  in  considering  them  as  for* 

9 


10 


INTRODUCTION. 


eign  nations;  it  is  almost  always  ourselves  that  we 
see  in  them.  Hence  spring  many  errors.  We  rarely 
fail  to  deceive  ourselves  regarding  these  ancient  na¬ 
tions  when  we  see  them  through  the  opinions  and  facts 
of  our  own  time. 

Now,  errors  of  this  kind  are  not  without  danger. 
The  ideas  which  the  moderns  have  had  of  Greece  and 
Rome  have  often  been  in  their  way.  Having  imper¬ 
fectly  observed  the  institutions  of  the  ancient  city, 
men  have  dreamed  of  reviving  them  among  us.  They 
have  deceived  themselves  about  the  liberty  of  the  an¬ 
cients,  and  on  this  very  account  liberty  among  the 
moderns  has  been  put  in  peril.  The  last  eighty  years 
have  clearly  shown  that  one  of  the  great  difficulties 
which  impede  the  march  of  modern  society,  is  the 
habit  which  it  has  of  always  keeping  Greek  and  Ro¬ 
man  antiquity  before  its  eyes. 

To  understand  the  truth  about  the  Greeks  and  Ro¬ 
mans,  it  is  wise  to  study  them  without  thinking  of 
ourselves,  as  if  they  were  entirely  foreign  to  us  ;  with 
the  same  disinterestedness,  and  with  the  mind  as  free, 
as  if  we  were  studying  ancient  India  or  Arabia. 

Thus  observed,  Greece  and  Rome  appear  to  us  in  a 
character  absolutely  inimitable  ;  nothing  in  modern 
times  resembles  them  ;  nothing  in  the  future  can  re¬ 
semble  them.  We  shall  attempt  to  show  by  what 
rules  these  societies  were  regulated,  and  it  will  be 
freely  admitted  that  the  same  rules  can  never  govern 
humanity  again. 

Whence  comes  this  ?  Why  are  the  conditions  of 

human  government  no  longer  the  same  as  in  earlier 

times?  The  great  changes  which  appear  from  time  to 

time  in  the  constitution  of  society  can  be  the  effect 

neither  of  chance  nor  of  force  alone. 

» 


INTRODUCTION. 


il 


The  cause  which  produces  them  must  be  powerful, 
and  must  be  found  iu  man  himself.  If  the  laws  of 
human  association  are  no  longer  the  same  as  in  an¬ 
tiquity,  it  is  because  there  has  been  a  change  in  man. 
There  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  our  being  which  is  modified 
from  age  to  age;  this  is  our  intelligence.  It  is  always 
in  movement  ;  almost  always  progressing  ;  and  on  this 
account,  our  institutions  and  our  laws  are  subject  to 
change.  Man  has  not,  in  our  day,  the  way  of  thinking 
that  he  had  twenty-five  centuries  ago;  and  this  is  why 
he  is  no  longer  governed  as  he  was  governed  then. 

The  history  of  Greece  and  Rome  is  a  witness  and 
an  example  of  the  intimate  relation  which  always  exists 
between  men’s  ideas  and  their  social  state.  Examine 
the  institutions  of  the  ancients  without  thinking  of 
their  religious  notions,  and  you  find  them  obscure, 
whimsical,  and  inexplicable.  Why  were  there  patri¬ 
cians  and  plebeians,  patrons  and  clients,  eupatrids  and 
thetes;  and  whence  came  the  native  and  ineffaceable 
differences  which  we  find  between  these  classes  ?  What 
was  the  meaning  of  those  Lacedaemonian  institutions 
which  appear  to  us  so  contrary  to  nature?  How  are 
we  to  explain  those  unjust  caprices  of  ancient  private 
law;  at  Corinth  and  at  Thebes,  the  sale  of  land  pro¬ 
hibited  ;  at  Athens  and  at  Rome, -ah  inequality  in  the 
succession  between  brother  and  sister?  What  did  the 
jurists  understand  by  agnation,  and  by  gens  f  Why 
those  revolutions  in  the  laws,  those  political  revolu¬ 
tions  ?  What  was  that  singular  patriotism  which  some¬ 
times  effaced  every  natural  sentiment?  What  did 
they  understand  by  that  liberty  of  which  they  were 
always  talking  ?  How  did  it  happen  that  institutions 
so  very  different  from  anything  of  which  we  have  an 
idea  to-day,  could  become  established  and  reign  for  so 


12 


INTRODUCTION. 


long  a  time?  What  is  the  superior  principle  which 
gave  them  authority  over  the  minds  of  men  ? 

But  by  the  side  of  these  institutions  and  laws  place 
the  religious  ideas  of  those  times,  and  the  facts  at  once 
become  clear,  and  their  explanation  is  no  longer  doubt¬ 
ful.  If,  on  going  back  to  the  first  ages  of  this  race,  — 
that  is  to  say,  to  the  time  when  its  institutions  were 
founded, —  we  observe  the  idea  which  it  had  of  human 
existence,  of  life,  of  death,  of  a  second  life,  of  the  divine 
principle,  we  perceive  a  close  relation  between  these 
opinions  and  the  ancient  rules  of  private  law  ;  between 
the  rites  which  spring  from  these  opinions  and  their 
political  institutions. 

A  comparison  of  beliefs  and  laws  shows  that  a  primi¬ 
tive  religion  constituted  the  Greek  and  Roman  family, 
established  marriage  and  paternal  authority,  fixed  the 
order  of  relationship,  and  consecrated  the  right  of 
property,  and  the  right  of  inheritance.  This  same  re¬ 
ligion,  after  having  enlarged  and  extended  the  family, 
formed  a  still  larger  association,  the  city,  and  reigned 
in  that  as  it  had  reigned  in  the  family.  From  it  came 
all  the  institutions,  as  well  as  all  the  private  law,  of  the 

ancients.  It  was  from  this  that  the  citv  received  all 

* 

its  principles,  its  rules,  its  usages,  and  its  magistracies. 
But,  in  the  course  of  time,  this  ancient  religion  became 
modified  or  effaced,  and  private  law  and  political  in¬ 
stitutions  were  modified  with  it.  Then  came  a  series 
of  revolutions,  and  social  changes  regularly  followed 
the  development  of  knowledge. 

It  is  of  the  first  importance,  therefore,  to  study  the 
religious  ideas  of  these  peoples,  and  the  oldest  are  the 
most  important  for  us  to  know.  For  the  institutions 
and  beliefs  which  we  find  at  the  flourishing  periods  of 
Greece  and  Rome  are  only  the  development  of  those 


V 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 

of  an  earlier  age;  we  must  seek  the  roots  of  them  in 
the  very  distant  past.  The  Greek  and  Italian  popula¬ 
tions  are  many  centuries  older  than  Romulus  and 
Horner.  It  was  at  an  epoch  more  ancient,  in  an  an¬ 
tiquity  without  date,  that  their  beliefs  were  formed, 
and  that  their  institutions  were  either  established  or 
prepared. 

But  what  hope  is  there  of  arriving  at  a  knowledge 
of  this  distant  past  ?  Who  can  tell  us  what  men 
thought  ten  or  fifteen  centuries  before  our  era  ?  Can 
we  recover  what  is  so  intangible  and  fugitive  —  beliefs 
and  opinions?  We  know  what  the  Aryas  of  the  East 
thought  thirty-five  centuries  ago:  we  learn  this  from 
the  hymns  of  the  Vedas,  which  are  certainly  very 
ancient,  and  from  the  laws  of  Manu,  in  which  we  can 
distinguish  passages  that  are  of  an  extremely  early  date. 
But  where  are  the  hymns  of  the  ancient  Hellenes? 
They,  as  well  as  the  Italians,  had  ancient  hymns,  and 
old  sacred  books;  but  nothing  of  these  has  come  down 
to  us.  What  tradition  can  remain  to  us  of  those  gen¬ 
erations  that  have  not  left  us  a  single  written  line  ? 

Fortunately,  the  past  never  completely  dies  for  man. 
Man  may  forget  it,  but  he  always  preserves  it  within 
him.  For,  take  him  at  any  epoch,  and  he  is  the  product, 
the  epitome,  of  all  the  earlier  epochs.  Let  him  look 
into  his  own  soul,  and  he  can  find  and  distinguish 
these  different  epochs  by  what  each  of  them  has  left 
within  him. 

Let  us  observe  the  Greeks  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  and 
the  Romans  of  Cicero’s  time;  they  carry  within  them 
the  authentic  marks  and  the  unmistakable  vestiges  of 
the  most  remote  ages.  The  contemporary  of  Cicero  (I 
speak  especially  of  the  man  of  the  people)  has  an  im¬ 
agination  full  of  legends;  these  legends  come  to  him 


14 


INTRODUCTION. 


from  a  very  early  time,  and  they  bear  witness  to  the 
manner  of  thinking  of  that  time.  The  contemporary  of 
Cicero  speaks  a  language  whose  roots  are  very  ancient  ; 
this  language,  in  expressing  the  thoughts  of  ancient 
ages,  has  been  modelled  upon  them,  and  it  has  kept  the 
impression,  and  transmits  it  from  century  to  century. 
The  primary  sense  of  a  root  will  sometimes  reveal  an 
ancient  opinion  or  an  ancient  usage  ;  ideas  have  been 
transformed,  and  the  recollections  of  them  have  van¬ 
ished;  but  the-  words  have  remained,  immutable  wit¬ 
nesses  of  beliefs  that  have  disappeared. 

The  contemporary  of  Cicero  practised  rites  in  the 
sacrifices,  at  funerals,  and  in  the  ceremony  of  marriage; 
these  rites  were  older  than  his  time,  and  what  proves  it 
is,  that  they  did  not  correspond  to  his  religious  belief. 
But  if  we  examine  the  rites  which  he  observed,  or  the 
formulas  which  he  recited,  we  find  the  marks  of  what 
men  believed  fifteen  or  twenty  centuries  earlier. 


BOOK  FIRST. 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Notions  about  the  Soul  and  Death. 

Down  to  the  latest  times  in  the  history  of  Greece 
and  Rome  we  find  the  common  people  clinging  to 
thoughts  and  usages  which  certainly  dated  from  a  very 
distant  past,  and  which  enable  us  to  discover  what 
notions  man  entertained  at  first  regarding  his  own 
nature,  his  soul,  and  the  mystery  of  death. 

Go  back  far  as  we  may  in  the  history  of  the  Indo- 
European  race,  of  which  the  Greeks  and  Italians  are 
branches,  and  we  do  not  find  that  this  race  has  ever 
thought  that  after  this  short  life  all  was  finished  for 
man.  The  most  ancient  generations,  long  before  there 
were  philosophers,  believed  in  a  second  existence  after 
the  present.  They  looked  upon  death  not  as  a  disso¬ 
lution  of  our  being,  but  simply  as  a  change  of  life. 

But  in  what  place,  and  in  what  manner,  was  this 
second  existence  passed  ?  Did  they  believe  that  the 
immortal  spirit,  once  escaped  from  a  body,  went  to  ani¬ 
mate  another?  No;  the  doctrine  of  metempsychosis 
was  never  able  to  take  root  in  the  minds  of  the  Greco- 
Italians  ;  nor  was  it  the  most  ancient  belief  of  the 

16 


16 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  L 


Aryas  of  the  East  ;  since  the  hymns  of  the  V edas  teach 
another  doctrine.  Did  they  believe  that  the  spirit 
ascended  towards  the  sky,  towards  the  region  of  light? 
Not  at  all;  the  thought  that  departed  souls  entered  a 
celestial  home  is  relatively  recent  in  the  West;  we 
find  it  expressed  for  the  first  time  by  the  poet  Pho- 
cylides.  The  celestial  abode  was  never  regarded  as 
anything  more  than  the  recompense  of  a  few  great 
men,  and  of  the  benefactors  of  mankind.  According 
to  the  oldest  belief  of  the  Italians  and  Greeks,  the  soul 
did  not  go  into  a  foreign  world  to  pass  its  second  ex¬ 
istence;  it  remained  near  men,  and  continued  to  live 
under  ground.1 

They  even  believed  for  a  very  long  time  that,  in  this 
second  existence,  the  soul  remained  associated  with 
the  body  ;  born  together,  they  were  not  separated  by 
death,  and  were  buried  together  in  the  grave. 

Old  as  this  belief  is,  authentic  evidences  of  it  still 
remain  to  us.  These  evidences  are  the  rites  of  sepul¬ 
ture,  which  have  long  survived  this  primitive  belief, 
but  which  certainly  began  with  it,  and  which  enable  us 
to  understand  it. 

The  rites  of  sepulture  show  clearly  that  when  a 
body  was  buried,  those  ancient  peoples  believed  that 
they  buried  something  that  was  living.  Yirgil,  who 
always  describes  religious  ceremonies  with  so  much 
care  and  precision,  concludes  the  account  of  the  funeral 
of  Polydorus  in  these  words:  “We  enclose  the  soul  iu 
the  grave.”  The  same  expression  is  found  in  Ovid, 
and  in  Pliny  the  Younger;  this  did  not  correspond 
to  the  ideas  which  these  writers  had  of  the  soul, 

1  Sub  terra  censebant  reliquam  vitam  agi  rportuomm.  Cicero, 
Tusc.,  I.  16.  Euripides,  Ale.,  163;  Uec.,  passim. 


CHAP.  I.  NOTIONS  ABOUT  THE  SOUL  AND  DEATH.  17 


but  from  time  immemorial  it  had  been  perpetuated  in 
the  language,  attesting  an  ancient  and  common  belief.1 

It  was  a  custom,  at  the  close  of  a  funeral  ceremony, 
to  call  the  soul  of  the  deceased  three  times  by  the 
name  he  had  borne.  They  wished  that  he  might  live 
happy  under  ground.  Three  times  they  said  to  hiny 
Fare  thee  well.  They  added,  May  the  earth  rest  lightly 
upon  thee.2  Thus  firmly  did  they  believe  that  the  per¬ 
son  would  continue  to  live  under  ground,  and  that  he 
would  still  preserve  a  sense  of  enjoyment  and  suffering. 
They  wrote  upon  the  tomb  that  the  man  rested  there  — 
an  expression  which  survived  this  belief,  and  which  has 
comedown  through  so  many  centuries  to  our  time.  We 
still  employ  it,  though  surely  no  one  to-day  thinks  that 
an  immortal  being  rests  in  a  tomb.  But  in  those 
ancient  days  they  believed  so  firmly  that  a  man  lived 
there  that  they  never  failed  to  bury  with  him  the  ob¬ 
jects  of  which  they  supposed  he  had  need  —  clothing, 
utensils,  and  arms.  They  poured  wine  upon  his  tomb 
to  quench  his  thirst,  and  placed  food  there  to  satisfy 
his  hunger.  They  slaughtered  horses  and  slaves  with 
the  idea  that  these  beings,  buried  with  the  dead,  would 

1  Ovid,  Fast.,  V.  451.  Pliny,  Letters ,  VII.  27.  Virg.,  Æn., 
III.  67.  Virgil’s  description  relates  to  the  employment  of 
cenotaphs  ;  it  was  admitted  that  when  the  body  of  a  relative 
could  not  je  found,  they  might  perform  a  ceremony  which 
exactly  reproduced  all  the  rites  of  sepulture  ;  and  it  was  believed 
that  in  tills  way,  in  the  absence  of  the  body,  they  enclosed  the 
soul  in  the  tomb.  Eurip.,  Helen.,  1061,  1240.  Scholiast,  ad 
Find.  Pyth.,  IV.  284.  Virg.,  VI.  505;  XII.  214. 

2  Iliad,  XXIII.  221.  Pausanias,  II.  7,  2.  Eurip.,  Ale., 
463.  Virg.,  Æn.,  III.  68.  Catul.,  98,  10.  Ovid,  Trist .,  III. 
3,  43;  Fast.,  IV.  852;  Metam .,  X.  62.  Juvenal,  VII.  207. 
Martial,  I.  89;  V.  35;  IV.  30.  Servius,  ad  Æn.,  II.  644; 
III.  68;  XI.  97.  Tacit.,  Agric.,  46. 

2 


18 


ancient  beliefs. 


BOOK  I 


serve  him  in  the  tomb,  as  they  had  done  during  his 
life.  After  the  taking  of  Troy,  the  Greeks  are  about  to 
return  to  their  country  ;  each  takes  with  him  his  beauti¬ 
ful  captive  ;  but  Achilles,  who  is  under  the  earth, 
claims  his  captive  also,  and  they  give  him  Polyxena.1 

A  verse  of  Pindar  has  preserved  to  us  a  curious 
vestige  of  the  thoughts  of  those  ancient  generations. 
Phrixus  had  been  compelled  to  quit  Greece,  and  had 
fled  as  far  as  Colchis.  lie  had  died  in  that  country; 
but,  dead  though  he  was,  he  wished  to  return  to  Greece. 
He  appeared,  therefore,  to  Pelias,  and  directed  him  to 
go  to  Colchis  and  bring  away  his  soul.  Doubtless  this 
soul  regretted  the  soil  ot  its  native  country,  and  the 
tomb  of  its  family;  but  being  attached  to  its  corporeal 
remains,  it  could  not  quit  Colchis  without  them.2 

From  this  primitive  belief  came  the  necessity  of 
burial.  In  order  that  the  soul  might  be  confined  to 
this  subterranean  abode,  which  was  suited  to  its  second 
life,  it  was  necessary  that  the  body  to  which  it  remained 
attached  should  be  covered  with  earth.  The  soul  that 
had  no  tomb  had  no  dwelling-place.  It  was  a  wander¬ 
ing  spirit.  In  vain  it  sought  the  repose  which  it  would 
naturally  desire  after  the  agitations  and  labor  of  this 
life;  it  must  wander  forever  under  the  form  of  a  larva , 
or  phantom,  without  ever  stopping,  without  ever  receiv¬ 
ing  the  offerings  and  the  food  which  it  had  need  of. 
Unfortunately,  it  soon  became  a  malevolent  spirit;  it 
tormented  the  living;  it  brought  diseases  upon  them, 
ravaged  their  harvests,  and  frightened  them  by  gloomy 
apparitions,  to  warn  them  to  give  sepulture  to  its  body 

1  Eurip.,  Ilec.,  passim;  Ale.,  Iphig.,  162.  Iliad,  XXIII.  166. 
Virg.,  Æn .,  V.  77;  VI.  221;  XI.  81.  Pliny,  N.  U.,  VIII.  40. 
Suet.,  Ccesar,  84.  Lucian,  De  Luctu ,  14. 

Find.,  Pythie.,  IV.  284,  ed.  Ileyne;  see  the  Scholiast. 


CHAP.  I.  NOTIONS  ABOUT  THE  SOUL  AND  DEATH.  19 


and  to  itself.  From  this  came  the  belief  in  ghosts.  All 
antiquity  was  persuaded  that  without  burial  the  soul 
was  miserable,  and  that  by  burial  it  became  forever 
happy.  It  was  not  to  display  their  grief  that  they 
performed  the  funeral  ceremony,  it  was  for  the  rest  and 
happiness  of  the  dead.1 

We  must  remark,  however,  that  to  place  the  body 
in  the  ground  was  not  enough.  Certain  traditional 
rites  had  also  to  be  observed,  and  certain  established 
formulas  to  be  pronounced.  We  find  in  Plautus  an 
account  of  a  ghost;2  it  was  a  soul  that  was  compelled 
to  wander  because  its  body  had  been  placed  in  the 
ground  without  due  attention  to  the  rites.  Suetonius 
relates  that  when  the  body  of  Caligula  was  placed  in 
the  earth  without  a  due  observation  of  the  funeral 
ceremonies,  his  soul  was  not  at  rest,  and  continued  to 
appear  to  the  living  until  it  was  determined  to  disinter 
the  body  and  give  it  a  burial  according  to  the  rules. 
These  two  examples  show  clearly  what  effects  were 
attributed  to  the  rites  and  formulas  of  the  funeral  cere¬ 
mony.  Since  without  them  souls  continued  to  wan¬ 
der  and  appear  to  the  living,  it  must  have  been  by  them 
that  souls  became  fixed  and  enclosed  in  their  tombs; 
and  just  as  there  were  formulas  which  had  this  virtue, 
there  were  others  which  had  a  contrary  virtue  —  that 
of  evoking  souls,  and  making  them  come  out  for  a  time 
from  the  sepulchre. 

We  can  see  in  ancient  writers  how  man  was  tor¬ 
mented  by  the  fear  that  after  his  death  the  rites  would 

Odyssey ,  XI.  72.  Eurip.,  Troad.,  1085.  Hdts.,  V.  92. 
Virg.,  VI.  371,  379.  Horace,  Odes,  I.  23.  Ovid,  Fast.,  V.  483. 
Pliny,  Epist.,  VII.  27.  Suetonius,  Calig.,  59.  Servius,  ad 
Æn.,  III.  68. 

3  Plautus,  Mostellaria. 


20 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  1. 


not  be  observed  for  him.  It  was  a  source  of  constant 
inquietude.  Men  feared  death  less  than  the  privation 
of  burial  ;  for  rest  and  eternal  happiness  were  at  stake. 
We  ought  not  to  be  too  much  surprised  at  seeing  the 
Athenians  put  generals  to  death,  who,  after  a  naval 
victory,  had  neglected  to  bury  the  dead.  These  gen¬ 
erals,  disciples  of  philosophers,  distinguished  clearly 
between  the  soul  and  the  body,  and  as  they  did  not 
believe  that  the  fate  of  the  one  was  connected  with  the 
fate  of  the  other,  it  appeared  to  them  of  very  little  con¬ 
sequence  whether  a  body  was  decomposed  in  the  earth 
or  in  the  water.  Therefore  they  did  not  brave  the 
tempest  for  the  vain  formality  of  collecting  and  burying 
their  dead.  But  the  multitude,  who,  even  at  Athens, 
still  clung  to  the  ancient  doctrines,  accused  these  gen¬ 
erals  of  impiety,  and  had  them  put  to  death.  By  their 
victory  they  had  saved  Athens;  but  by  their  impiety 
they  had  lost  thousands  of  souls.  The  relatives  of  the 
dead,  thinking  of  the  long-suffering  which  these  souls 
must  bear,  came  to  the  tribunal  clothed  in  mourning, 
and  asked  for  vengeance.  In  the  ancient  cities  the  law 
condemned  those  guilty  of  great  crimes  to  a  terrible 
punishment  —  the  privation  of  burial.  In  this  manner 
they  punished  the  soul  itself,  and  inflicted  upon  it  a 
punishment  almost  eternal. 

We  must  observe  that  there  was  among  the  ancients 
another  opinion  concerning  the  abode  of  the  dead. 
They  pictured  to  themselves  a  region,  also  subterranean, 
but  infinitely  more  vast  than  the  tomb,  where  all  souls, 
far  from  their  bodies,  lived  together,  and  where  re¬ 
wards  and  punishments  were  distributed  according  to 
the  lives  men  had  led  in  this  world.  But  the  rites  of 
burial,  such  as  we  have  described  them,  manifestly  dis¬ 
agree  with  this  belief — a  certain  proof  that,  at  the  epoch 


CHAP.  I.  NOTIONS  ABOUT  THE  SOUL  AND  DEATH. 


21 


when  these  rites  were  established,  men  did  not  yet  be¬ 
lieve  in  Tartarus  and  the  Elysian  Fields.  The  earliest 
opinion  of  these  ancient  generations  was,  that  man  lived 
in  the  tomb,  that  the  soul  did  not  leave  the  body,  and 
that  it  remained  fixed  to  that  portion  of  ground  where 
the  bones  lay  buried.  Besides,  man  had  no  account  to 
render  of  his  past  life.  Once  placed  in  the  tomb,  he 
had  neither  rewards  nor  punishments  to  expect.  This 
is  a  very  crude  opinion  surely,  but  it  is  the  beginning 
of  the  notion  of  a  future  life. 

The  being  who  lived  under  ground  was  not  suf- 
ficiently  free  from  human  frailties  to  have  no  need  ot‘ 
food  ;  and,  therefore,  on  certain  days  of  the  year,  a 
meal  was  carried  to  every  tomb.  Ovid  and  Virgil 
have  given  us  a  description  of  this  ceremony.  The 
observance  continued  unchanged  even  to  their  time, 
although  religious  beliefs  had  already  undergone  great 
changes.  According  to  these  writers,  the  tomb  was 
surrounded  with  large  wreaths  of  grasses  and  flowers, 
and  cakes,  fruits,  and  flowers  were  placed  upon  it  ; 
milk,  wine,  and  sometimes  even  the  blood  of  a  victim 
were  added.1 

We  should  greatly  deceive  ourselves  if  we  thought 
that  these  funeral  repasts  were  nothing  more  than  a  sort 
of  commemoration.  The  food  that  the  family  brought 
was  really  for  the  dead  —  exclusively  for  him.  What 
proves  this  is,  that  the  milk  and  wine  were  poured  out 
upon  the  earth  of  the  tomb  ;  that  the  earth  was  hollowed 
out  so  that  the  solid  food  might  reach  the  dead  ;  that 
if  they  sacrificed  a  victim,  all  its  flesh  was  burnt,  so 
that  none  of  the  living  could  have  any  part  of  it;  that 

1  Virgil,  Æn.,  III.  300  et  *eq.  ;  V.  77.  Ovid,  Fast.,  II. 
&35-54Z. 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


they  pronounced  certain  consecrated  formulas  to  in¬ 
vite  the  dead  to  eat  and  drink;  that  if  the  entire  family 
were  present  at  the  meal,  no  one  touched  the  food  ; 
that,  in  fine,  when  they  went  away,  they  took  great 
care  to  leave  a  little  milk  and  a  few  cakes  in  vases;  and 
that  it  was  considered  gross  impiety  for  any  living 
person  to  touch  this  scant  provision  destined  for  the 
needs  of  the  dead.1 

These  usages  are  attested  in  the  most  formal  manner. 
“I  pour  upon  the  earth  of  the  tomb,”  says  Iphigenia 
in  Euripides,  “milk,  honey,  and  wine;  for  it  is  with 
these  that  we  rejoice  the  dead.”2  Among  the  Greeks 
there  was  in  front  of  every  tomb  a  place  destined  for 
the  immolation  of  the  victim  and  the  cooking  of  its 
flesh.3  The  Roman  tomb  also  had  its  culina ,  a  species 
of  kitchen,  of  a  particular  kind,  and  entirely  for  the  use 
of  the  dead.4  Plutarch  relates  that  after  the  battle  of 
Platæa,  the  slain  having  been  buried  upon  the  field  of 
battle,  the  Platæans  engaged  to  offer  them  the  funeral 
repast  every  year.  Consequently,  on  each  anniversary, 
they  went  in  grand  procession,  conducted  by  their  first 
magistrates  to  the  mound  under  which  the  dead  lay. 
They  offered  the  departed  milk,  wine,  oil,  and  perfumes, 
and  sacrificed  a  victim.  When  the  provisions  had  been 
placed  upon  the  tomb,  the  Platæans  pronounced  a 
formula  by  which  they  called  the  dead  to  come  and 
partake  of  this  repast.  This  ceremony  was  still  per¬ 
formed  in  the  time  of  Plutarch,  who  was  enabled  to 
witness  the  six  hundredth  anniversary  of  it.5  A  little 

1  Hdts.,11.  40.  Eurip.,  Hec.,  536.  Pausanias,  II.  10.  Virgil, 
V.  98.  Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  566.  Lucian,  Charon. 

*  Æsch.,  Choeph.,  476.  Eurip.,  Iph.,  162. 

3  Euripides,  Electra ,  513. 

4  Eestus,  v.  Culina. 

‘  Plutarch,  Aristides ,  21. 


SH  AP.  II.  THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  DEAD.  23 

later,  Lucian,  ridiculing  these  opinions  and  usages, 
shows  how  deeply  rooted  they  were  in  the  common 
mind.  “The  dead,”  says  he,  “are  nourished  by  the 
provisions  which  we  place  upon  their  tomb,  and  drink 
the  wine  which  we  pour  out  there  ;  so  Vhat  one  of  the 
dead  to  whom  nothing  is  offered  condemned  to 
perpetual  hunger.”  1 

These  are  very  old  forms  of  belief,  and  are  quite 
groundless  and  ridiculous  ;  and  yet  they  exercised 
empire  over  man  during  a  great  number  of  generations. 
They  governed  men’s  minds;  we  shall  soon  see  that 
they  governed  societies  even,  and  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  domestic  and  social  institutions  of  the  ancients 
was  derived  from  this  source. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Worship  of  the  Dead. 

This  belief  very  soon  gave  rise  to  certain  rules  ot 
conduct.  Since  the  dead  had  need  of  food  and  drink, 
it  appeared  to  be  a  duty  of  the  living  to  satisfy  this 
need.  The  care  of  supplying  the  dead  with  sustenance 
was  not  left  to  the  caprice  or  to  the  variable  senti¬ 
ments  of  men;  it  was  obligatory.  Thus  a  complete 
religion  of  the  dead  was  established,  whose  dogmas 
misrht  soon  be  effaced,  but  whose  rites  endured  until 
the  triumph  of  Christianity.  The  dead  were  held  to 
be  sacred  beings.  To  them  the  ancients  applied  the 
most  respectful  epithets  that  could  be  thought  of;  they 


1  Lucian,  De  Luctu. 


24 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


called  them  good,  holy,  happy.  For  them  they  had 
all  the  veneration  that  man  can  have  for  the  divinity 
whom  he  loves  or  fears.  In  their  thoughts  the  dead 
were  gods.1 

This  sort  of  apotheosis  was  not  the  privilege  of 
great  men  ;  no  distinction  was  made  among  the  dead. 
Cicero  says,  “  Our  ancestors  desired  that  the  men  who 
had  quitted  this  life  should  be  counted  in  the  number 
of  the  gods.”  It  was  not  necessary  to  have  been  even 
a  virtuous  man  :  the  wicked  man,  as  well  as  the  good 
man,  became  a  god  ;  but  he  retained  in  the  second  life 
all  the  bad  inclinations  which  had  tormented  him  in 
the  first.2 

The  Greeks  gave  to  the  dead  the  name  of  subter¬ 
ranean  gods.  In  Æschylus,  a  son  thus  invokes  his 
deceased  father  :  “  O  thou  who  art  a  god  beneath  the 
earth.”  Euripides  says,  speaking  of  Alcestis,  “  Near 
her  tomb  the  passer  by  will  stop  and  say,  ‘  This  is  now 
a  thrice  happy  divinity.’  ”3 

The  Romans  gave  to  the  dead  the  name  of  Manes. 

Render  to  the  manes  what  is  due  them,”  says  Cicero  ; 
“  they  are  men  who  have  quitted  this  life  ;  consider 
them  as  divine  beings.”  4 

I  he  tombs  were  the  temples  of  these  divinities,  and 
they  bore  the  sacramental  inscription,  Dis  Manibus , 
and  in  Greek,  &toig  % dovioig .  There  the  god  lived 

Æseh.,  Choeph.,  469.  Sophocles,  Antig.,  451.  Plutarch, 
‘John,  21;  Rom.  Quest.,  52;  Gr.  Quest.,  5.  Virgil,  V.  47: 
V.  80. 

2  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  22.  St.  Augustine,  City  of  God ,  IX.  11  ; 
VIII.  26. 

3  Eurip.,  Ale.,  1003,  1015. 

4  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  II.  9  Varro,  in  St.  Augustine,  City  of 
God ,  VIII.  26. 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  I*EAD. 


25 


beneath  the  soil,  manesque  sepulti ,  says  Virgil.  Be¬ 
fore  the  tomb  there  was  an  altar  for  the  sacrifices,  as 
before  the  temples  of  the  gods.' 

We  find  this  worship  of  the  dead  among  the  Hel¬ 
lenes,  among  the  Latins,  among  the' Sabines,2  among 
the  Etruscans  ;  we  also  find  it  among  the  Aryas  of 
India.  Mention  is  made  of  it  in  the  hymns  of  the  Reg- 
Veda.  It  is  spoken  of  in  the  Laws  of  Manu  as  the 
most  ancient  worship  among  men.  We  see  in  this 
book  that  the  idea  of  metempsychosis  Lad  already 
passed  over  this  ancient  belief  even  before  the  religion 
of  Brahma  was  established;  and  still  beneath  the 
worship  of  Brahma,  beneath  the  doctrine  of  metemp¬ 
sychosis,  the  religion  of  the  souls  of  ancestors  still 
subsists,  living  and  indestructible,  and  compels  the 
author  of  the  Laws  of  Manu  to  take  it  into  account, 
and  to  admit  its  rules  into  the  sacred  book.  Not  the 
least  singular  thing  about  this  strange  book  is,  that  it 
has  preserved  the  rules  relative  to  this  ancient  belief 
whilst  it  was  evidently  prepared  in  an  age  when  a 
belief  entirely  different  had  gained  the  ascendency. 
This  proves  that  much  time  is  required  to  transform 
a  human  belief,  and  still  more  to  modify  its  exterior 
forms,  and  the  laws  based  upon  it.  At  the  present  day, 
even,  after  so  many  ages  of  revolutions,  the  Hindus 
continue  to  make  offerings  to  their  ancestors.  This 
belief  and  these  rites  are  the  oldest  and  the  most  persist¬ 
ent  of  anything  pertaining  to  the  Indo-European  race. 
This  worship  was  the  same  in  India  as  in  Greece  and 

*  Virgil,  Æn.,  IV.  34.  Aulus  Gellius,  X.  18.  Plutarch, 
Rom.  Quest.,  14.  Eurip.,  Troades ,  90;  Electro,,  613.  Sue¬ 
tonius,  Nero,  50. 

*  Varro,  De  Ling.  Lat.,  V.  74. 


26 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  1. 


Italy.  The  Hindu  had  to  supply  the  manes  with  the 
repast,  which  was  called  sraddha.  “  Let  the  master 
of  the  house  make  the  sraddha  with  rice,  milk,  roots, 
and  fruits,  in  order  to  procure  for  himself  the  good-will 
of  the  manes.” 

The  Hindu  believed  that  at  the  moment  when  he 
offered  this  funeral  repast,  the  manes  of  his  ancestors 
came  to  seat  themselves  beside  him,  and  took  the  nour¬ 
ishment  which  was  offered  them.  He  also  believed 
that  this  repast  afforded  the  dead  great  enjoyment. 
“When  the  sraddha  is  made  according  to  the  rites,  the 
ancestors  of  the  one  who  offers  it  experience  un¬ 
bounded  satisfaction.”  1 

Thus  the  Aryas  of  the  East  had,  in  the  beginning, 
the  same  notions  as  those  of  the  West,  relative  to  man’s 
destiny  after  death.  Before  believing  in  metemp¬ 
sychosis,  which  supposes  an  absolute  distinction  be¬ 
tween  the  soul  and  the  body,  they  believed  in  the 
vague  and  indefinite  existence  of  man,  invisible,  but 
not  immaterial,  and  requiring  of  mortals  nourishment 
and  offerings. 

The  Hindu,  like  the  Greek,  regarded  the  dead  as 
divine  beings,  who  enjoyed  a  happy  existence  ;  but  their 
happiness  depended  on  the  condition  that  the  offerings 
made  by  the  living  should  be  carried  to  them  regularly. 
If  the  sraddha  for  a  dead  person  was  not  offered  regu¬ 
larly,  his  soul  left  its  peaceful  dwelling,  and  became  a 
wandering  spirit,  who  tormented  the  living;  so  that, 
if  the  dead  were  really  gods,  this  was  only  whilst  the 
living  honored  them  with  their  worship. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  had  exactly  the  same  be¬ 
lief.  If  the  funeral  repast  ceased  to  be  offered  to-  the 

1  Laws  of  Manu,  1.  95;  III.  82,  122,  127,  146,  189,  274- 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  THE  DEAD. 


27 


dead,  they  immediately  left  their  tombs,  and  became 
wandering  shades,  that  were  heard  in  the  silence  of  the 
night.  They  reproached  the  living  with  their  negli¬ 
gence;  or  they  sought  to  punish  them  by  afflicting 
them  with  diseases,  or  cursing  their  soil  with  sterility. 
In  a  word,  they  left  the  living  no  rest  till  the  funeral 
leasts  were  re-established.  The  sacrifice,  the  offering 
of  nourishment,  and  the  libation  restored  them  to  the 
tomb,  and  gave  them  back  their  rest  and  their  divine 
attributes.  Man  was  then  at  peace  with  them.1 2 

If  a  deceased  person,  on  being  neglected,  became  a 
malignant  spirit,  one  who  was  honored  became,  on 
the  other  hand,  a  tutelary  deity.  He  loved  those  who 
brought  him  nourishment.  To  protect  them  he  con¬ 
tinued  to  take  part  in  human  affairs,  and  frequently 
played  an  important  part  there.  Dead  though  he  was, 
he  knew  how  to  be  strong  and  active.  The  living 
prayed  to  him,  and  asked  his  support  and  his  favors. 
When  any  one  came  near  a  tomb,  he  stopped,  and  said, 
“  Subterranean  god,  be  propitious  to  me.”  1 

We  can  judge  of  the  power  which  the  ancients 
attributed  to  the  dead  by  this  prayer,  which  Electra 
addresses  to  the  manes  of  her  father:  “Take  pity  on 
me,  and  on  my  brother  Orestes;  make  him  return  to 
this  country  ;  hear  my  prayer,  O  my  father  ;  grant  my 

1  Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  549-556.  Thus  in  Æschylus  :  Clytem- 
nestra,  warned  by  a  dream  that  the  manes  of  Agamemnon  are 
irritated  against  her,  hastens  to  send  offerings  to  his  tomb. 

2  Eurip.,  Ale.,  1004  (1016):  “They  believe  that  if  we  havo 
no  care  for  these  dead,  and  if  we  neglect  their  worship,  they 
will  do  us  harm,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  they  do  us  good  if 
we  render  them  propitious  to  us  by  offerings.”  Porphyry,  De 
Abstin ,,  II.  37.  See  Horace,  Odes ,  II.  23;  Plato,  Laws,  IX.  p. 
926,  927. 


28 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


wishes,  receiving  my  libations.”  These  powerful  gods 
did  not  give  material  aid  only  ;  for  Electra  adds,  “  Give 
me  a  heart  more  chaste  than  my  mother’s,  and  purer 
hands.”1  Tims  the  Hindu  asks  of  the  manes  “that 
in  his  family  the  number  of  good  men  may  increase, 
and  that  lie  may  have  much  to  give.” 

These  human  souls  deified  by  death  were  what  the 
Greeks  called  demons ,  or  heroes.2  The  Latins  gave 
them  the  name  of  Lares,  Manes ,  Genii.  “Our  ances¬ 
tors  believed,”  says  Apuleius,  “that  the  Manes,  when 
they  were  malignant,  were  to  be  called  larvce  ;  they 
called  them  Lares  when  they  were  benevolent  and 
propitious.” 3  Elsewhere  we  read,  “Genius  and  Lar  is 
the  same  being;  so  our  ancestors  believed.”4  And  in 
Cicero,  “Those  that  the  Greeks  called  demons  we  call 
Lares.” 3 

This  religion  of  the  dead  appears  to  be  the  oldest 
that  has  existed  among  this  race  of  men.  Before  men 
had  any  notion  of  Indra  or  of  Zeus,  they  adored  the 
dead;  they  feared  them,  and  addressed  them  prayers. 
It  seems  that  the  religious  sentiment  commenced  in 
this  way.  If  was  perhaps  while  looking  upon  the  dead 

1  Æsch.,  Choeph.,  122-135. 

2  The  primitive  sense  of  this  last  word  appears  to  have  been 
that  of  dead  men.  The  language  of  the  inscriptions,  which  is 
that  of  the  common  people  among  the  Greeks,  often  employs  it 
in  this  sense.  Boeckh,  Corp.  inscript.,  Nos.  1G29,  1723,  1781, 
1784,  1786,  1789,  3398.  Ph.  Lebas,  Monum.  de  Morée,  p.  205. 
Vide  Theognis,  ed.  Welcker,  V.  513.  The  Greeks  also  gave  to 
ane  dead  the  name  of  daiptuv.  Eurip.  Ale.,  1140,  et  Schol. 
3£sch.,  Pers .,  620.  Pausanias,  VI.  6. 

3  Servius,  ad  Æn.,  III.  63. 

;  Censorinus,  3. 

6  Cicero,  Timceus,  11.  Dionysius  Hidicarnasseus  translates 
Lar  famiiiaris  by  6  xuj'  oix'iuv  ( Antiq .  Rom.,  IV.  2.) 


O HAP.  III. 


THE  SACRED  FIRE. 


29 


that  man  first  conceived  the  idea  of  the  supernatural, 
and  began  to  have  a  hope  beyond  what  he  saw.  Death 
was  the  first  mystery,  and  it  placed  man  on  the  track 
of  other  mvsteries.  It  raised  his  thoughts  from  the 
visible  to  the  invisible,  from  the  transitory  to  the 
eternal,  from  the  human  to  the  divine. 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Sacred  Fire. 

In  the  house  of  every  Greek  and  Roman  was  an 
altar;  on  this  altar  there  had  always  to  be  a  small 
quantity  of  ashes,  and  a  few  lighted  coals.1  It  was  a 
sacred  obligation  for  the  master  of  every  house  to  keep 
the  fire  up  night  and  day.  Woe  to  the  house  where 
it  was  extinguished.  Every  evening  they  covered  the 
coals  with  ashes  to  prevent  them  from  being  entirely 
consumed.  In  the  morning  the  first  care  was  to  revive 
this  fire  with  a  few  twigs.  The  fire  ceased  to  glow  upon 
the  altar  only  when  the  entire  family  had  perished  ; 
an  extinguished  hearth,  an  extinguished  family,  were 
synonymous  expressions  among  the  ancients.2 * 4 

1  The  Greeks  called  this  altar  hy  various  names,  pupoç, 

to/àoa,  tor  la ;  this  last  finally  prevailed  in  use,  and  was  the 

name  by  which  they  afterwards  designated  the  goddess  Vesta. 
The  Latins  called  the  same  altar  ara  or  focus. 

4  Homeric  Hymns ,  XXIX.  Orphic  Hymns ,  LXXXIV.  He¬ 
siod,  Opera ,  732.  Æsch.,  Agam .,  1056.  Eurip.,  Here.  Fur., 
503,  599.  Time.,  I.  136.  Aristoph.,  Plut.,  795.  Cato,  De  Re 
Rust.,  143.  Cicero,  Pro  Domo,  40.  Tibullus,  I.  1,  4.  Horace, 
Epod.,  II.  43.  Ovid,  A.  A.,  I.  637.  Virgil,  II.  512. 


30 


ancient  beliefs. 


BOOK  1. 


It  is  evident  that  this  usage  of  keeping  fire  always 
apon  an  altar  was  connected  with  an  ancient  belief. 
The  rules  and  the  rites  which  they  observed  in  regard 
to  it,  show  that  it  was  not  an  insignificant  custom.  It 
was  not  permitted  to  feed  this  fire  with  every  sort  of 
wood  ;  religion  distinguished  among  the  trees  those 
that  could  be  employed  for  this  use  from  those  it  was 
impiety  to  make  use  of.1 

It  was  also  a  religious  precept  that  this  fire  must 
always  remain  pure;2  which  meant,  literally,  that  no 
filthy  object  ought  to  be  cast  into  it,  and  figuratively, 
that  no  blameworthy  deed  ought  to  be  committed  in 
its  presence.  There  was  one  day  in  the  year  —  among 
the  Romans  it  was  the  first  of  March  —  when  it  was 
the  duty  of  every  family  to  put  out  its  sacred  fire,  and 
light  another  immediately.3  But  to  procure  this  new 
fire,  certain  rites  had  to  be  scrupulously  observed. 
Especially  must  they  avoid  using  flint  and  steel  for  this 
purpose.  The  only  processes  allowed  were  to  concen¬ 
trate  the  solar  rays  into  a  focus,  or  to  rub  together 
rapidly  two  pieces  of  wood  of  a  given  sort.4  These 
different  rules  sufficiently  prove  that,  in  the  opinion  of 
the  ancients,  it  was  not  a  question  of  procuring  an  ele¬ 
ment  useful  and  agreeable;  these  men  saw  something 
else  in  the  fire  that  burnt  upon  their  altars. 

This  fire  was  something  divine  ;  they  adored  it,  and 
offered  it  a  real  worship.  They  made  offerings  to  it 
of  whatever  they  believed  to  be  agreeable  to  a  god  — 

1  Virgil,  VII.  71.  Festus,  v.  Felicis.  Plutarch,  Numa,  9. 

2  Eurip.,  Here.  Fur.,  715.  Cato,  De  Re  Rust.,  143.  Ovid, 
Fast.,  Til.  698. 

3  Macrob.  Saturn.,  I.  12. 

*  Ovid,  Fast.,  III.  143.  Festus,  v.  Felicis.  Jul'an,  Speech 
nn  the  Sun. 


CHAP.  111. 


THE  SACRED  FIRE. 


31 


flowers,  fruits,  incense,  wine,  and  victims.  They  be¬ 
lieved  it  to  have  power,  and  asked  for  its  protection. 
They  addressed  fervent  prayers  to  it,  to  obtain  those 
eternal  objects  of  human  desire  —  health,  wealth,  and 
happiness.  One  of  these  prayers,  which  has  been  pre¬ 
served  to  us  in  the  collection  of  Orphic  Hymns,  runs 
thus:  “Render  us  always  prosperous,  always  happy, 
O  fire;  thou  who  art  eternal,  beautiful,  ever  young; 
thou  who  nourishest,  thou  who  art  rich,  receive  favor¬ 
ably  these  our  offerings,  and  in  return  give  us  happiness 
and  sweet  health.”  1 

Thus  they  saw  in  the  fire  a  beneficent  god,  who  main¬ 
tained  the  life  of  man;  a  rich  god,  who  nourished  him 
with  gifts;  a  powerful  god,  who  protected  his  house 
and  family.  In  presence  of  danger  they  sought  refuge 
near  this  fire.  When  the  palace  of  Priam  is  de¬ 
stroyed,  Hecuba  draws  the  old  man  near  the  hearth. 
“Thy  arms  cannot  protect  thee,”  she  says;  “but  this 
altar  will  protect  us  all.”  J 

See  Alcestis,  who  is  about  to  die,  giving  her  life  to 
save  her  husband.  She  approaches  the  fire,  and  in¬ 
vokes  it  in  these  terms:  “O  divinity,  mistress  of  this 
house,  for  the  last  time  I  fall  before  thee,  and  address 
thee  my  prayers,  for  I  am  going  to  descend  among 
the  dead.  Watch  over  my  children,  who  will  have  no 
mother;  give  to  my  boy  a  tender  wife,  and  to  my  girl 
a  noble  husband.  Let  them  not,  like  me,  die  before 
the  time  ;  but  let  them  enjoy  a  long  life  in  the  midst 
of  happiness.”  J 

1  Orphic  Hymns ,  84.  Plaut.,  Captiv .,  II.  2.  Tibull.,  I.  9, 
74.  Ovid,  A.  A.,  I.  637.  Plin.,  Nat.  Hist .,  XVIII.  8. 

s  Virgil,  Æ.,  II.  623.  Horace,  Epist .,  I.  6.  Ovid,  Triste 
IV.  8,  22. 

?  Eurip.,  Ale 162-168. 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  Ï. 


In  misfortune  man  betook  himself  to  his  sacred  tire, 
and  heaped  reproaches  upon  it;  in  good  fortune  he 
returned  it  thanks.  The  soldier  who  returned  from 
war  thanked  it  for  having  enabled  him  to  escape  the 
perils.  Æschylus  represents  Agamemnon  returning 
from  Troy,  happy,  and  covered  with  glory.  His  first 
act  is  not  to  thank  Jupiter;  he  does  not  go  to  a  temple 
to  pour  out  his  joy  and  gratitude,  but  makes  a  sacri¬ 
fice  of  thank-offerings  to  the  fire  in  his  own  house.1 
A  man  never  went  out  of  his  dwelling  without  address¬ 
ing  a  prayer  to  the  fire;  on  his  return,  before  seeing 
his  wife  or  embracing  his  children,  he  must  fall  before 
the  fire,  and  invoke  it.2 

The  sacred  fire  was  the  Providence  of  the  family. 
The  worship  was  very  simple.  The  first  rule  was,  that 
there  should  always  be  upon  the  altar  a  few  live  coals; 
for  if  this  fire  was  extinguished  a  god  ceased  to  exist. 
At  certain  moments  of  the  day  they  placed  upon  the  fire 
dry  herbs  and  wood  ;  then  the  god  manifested  himself 
in  a  bright  flame.  They  offered  sacrifices  to  him  ;  and 
the  essence  of  every  sacrifice  was  to  sustain  and  reani¬ 
mate  the  sacred  fire,  to  nourish  and  develop  the  body 
of  the  god.  This  was  the  reason  why  they  gave 
him  wood  before  everything  else;  for  the  same  rea¬ 
son  they  afterwards  poured  out  wine  upon  the  altar, 
—  the  inflammable  wine  of  Greece,  —  oil,  incense,  and 
the  fat  of  victims.  The  god  received  these  offerings, 
and  devoured  them  ;  radiant  with  satisfaction,  he 
rose  above  the  altar,  and  lighted  up  the  worshipper 
with  his  brightness.  Then  was  the  moment  to  invoke 
him;  and  the  hymn  of  prayer  went  out  from  the  heart 
of  man. 

1  Æsch.,  Agam.,  1015. 

*  Oato,  De  Re  Rust.,  2.  Eurip.,  Here.  Fur.,  523. 


CHAP.  III. 


THE  SACRED  FIRS. 


33 

Especially  were  the  meals  of  the  family  religioug 
acts.  The  god  presided  there.  He  had  cooked  the 
bread,  and  prepared  the  food  ; 1  a  prayer,  therefore,  was 
due  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  repast.  Before 
eating’,  they  placed  upon  the  altar  the  first  fruits  of  the 
food  ;  before  drinking,  they  poured  out  a  libation  of 
wine.  This  was  the  god’s  portion.  Ko  one  doubted 
that  he  was  present,  that  he  ate  and  drank  ;  for  did  they 
not  see  the  flame  increase  as  if  it  had  been  nourished 
by  the  provisions  offered  ?  Thus  the  meal  was  divided 
between  the  man  and  the  god.  It  was  a  sacred  cere¬ 
mony,  by  which  they  held  communion  with  each  other.* 
This  is  an  old  belief,  which,  in  the  course  of  time,  faded 
from  the  minds  of  men,  but  which  left  behind  it,  for 
many  an  age,  rites,  usages,  and  forms  of  language  of 
which  even  the  incredulous  could  not  free  themselves. 
Horace  Ovid,  and  Petronius  still  supped  before  their 
fires,  and  poured  out  libations,  and  addressed  prayers 
to  them.3 

This  worship  of  the  sacred  fire  did  not  belong  ex¬ 
clusively  to  the  populations  of  Greece  and  Italy.  We 
find  it  in  the  East.  The  Laws  of  Manu,  as  they  have 
come  to  us,  show  us  the  religion  of  Brahma  completely 
established,  and  even  verging  towards  its  decline;  but 
they  have  preserved  vestiges  and  remains  of  a  religion 
still  more  ancient,  —  that  of  the  sacred  fire,  —  which  the 
worship  of  Brahma  had  reduced  to  a  secondary  rank, 
but  could  not  destroy.  The  Brahmin  has  his  fire  to 
keep  night  and  day;  every  morning  and  every  evening 
he  feeds  it  with  wood  ;  but,  as  with  the  Greeks,  this 

1  Ovid,  Fast.,  VI.  315. 

*  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  64  ;  Comm,  on  Ilesiod ,  44.  Uomerii 
Hymns ,  29. 

a  Horace,  Sat.,  II.  6,  66.  Ovid,  Fast.,  IT.  631.  Petronius,  60. 

n 


34 


ANCIENT  RELIEFS, 


ROOK  I. 


must  be  the  wood  of  certain  trees.  As  the  Greeks  and 
Italians  offer  it  wine,  the  Hindu  pours  upon  it  a  fer¬ 
mented  liquor,  which  he  calls  soma.  Meals,  too,  are 
religious  acts,  and  the  rites  are  scrupulously  described 
in  the  Laws  of  Manu.  They  address  prayers  to  the 
file,  as  in  Greece;  they  offer  it  the  first  fruits  of  lice, 
butter,  and  honey.  We  read  that  “  the  Brahmin  should 
not  eat  the  rice  of  the  new  harvest  without  having 
offered  the  first  fruits  of  it  to  the  hearth-fire  ;  for  the 
sacred  fire  is  greedy  of  grain,  and  when  it  is  not  hon¬ 
ored,  it  will  devour  the  existence  of  the  needisrent 
Brahmin.”  The  Hindus,  like  the  Greeks  and  the  Ro¬ 
mans,  pictured  the  gods  to  themselves  as  greedy  not 
only  of  honors  and  respect,  but  of  food  and  drink. 
Man  believed  himself  compelled  to  satisfy  their  hunger 
and  thirst,  if  he  wished  to  avoid  their  wrath. 

Among  the  Hindus  this  divinity  of  the  fire  is  called 
Agni.  The  Rig-Veda  contains  a  great  number  of 
hymns  addressed  to  this  god.  In  one  it  is  said,  “  O 
Agni,  thou  art  the  life,  thou  art  the  protector  of 
man.  ...  In  return  for  our  praises,  bestow  upon  the 
father  of  the  family  who  implores  thee  glory  and 
riches.  .  .  .  Agni,  thou  art  a  prudent  defender  and  a 
father;  to  thee  we  owe  life;  we  are  thy  family.”  Thus 
the  fire  of  the  heal  th  is,  as  in  Greece,  a  tutelary  power. 
Man  asks  abundance  of  it:  “Make  the  earth  ever  lib¬ 
eral  towards  us.”  He  asked  health  of  it:  “Grant  that 
I  may  enjoy  long  life,  and  that  I  may  arrive  at  old  age, 
like  the  sun  at  his  setting.”  He  even  asks  wisdom  of 
it:  “O  Agni,  thou  placest  upon  the  good  way  the 
man  who  has  wandered  into  the  bad.  .  .  .  If  we  have 
committed  a  fault,  if  we  have  gone  far  from  thee,  par¬ 
don  us.”  This  fire  of  the  hearth  was,  as  in  Greece, 
essentially  pure  :  the  Brahmin  was  forbidden  to  throw 
anything  filthy  into  it,  or  even  to  warm  his  feet  by  it. 


CHAP.  TII 


THE  SACRED  FIRE. 


35 


As  in  Greece,  the  guilty  man  could  not  approach  his 
hearth  before  he  had  purified  himself. 

It  is  a  strong  proof  of  the  antiquity  of  this  belief,  and 
of  these  practices,  to  find  them  at  the  same  time  among 
men  on  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  and  among 
those  of  the  peninsula  of  India.  Assuredly  the  Greeks 
did  not  borrow  this  religion  from  the  Hindus,  nor  the 
Hindus  from  the  Greeks.  But  the  Greeks,  the  Italians, 
and  the  Hindus  belonged  to  the  same  race  ;  their  an¬ 
cestors,  in  a  very  distant  past,  lived  together  in  Central 
Asia.  There  this  creed  originated  and  these  rites  were 
established.  The  religion  of  the  sacred  fire  dates,  there¬ 
fore,  from  the  distant  and  dim  epoch  when  there  were 
yet  no  Greeks,  no  Italians,  no  Hindus;  when  there 
were  only  Aryas.  When  the  tribes  separated,  they 
carried  this  worship  with  them,  some  to  the  banks  of 
the  Ganges,  others  to  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 
Later,  when  these  tribes  had  no  intercourse  with  each 
other,  some  adored  Brahma,  others  Zeus,  and  still  others 
Janus;  each  group  chose  its  own  gods;  but  all  pre¬ 
served,  as  an  ancient  legacy,  the  first  religion  which 
they  had  known  and  practised  in  the  common  cradle 
of  their  race. 

If  the  existence  of  this  worship  among  all  the  Indo- 
European  nations  did  not  sufficiently  demonstrate  its 
high  antiquity,  we  might  find  other  proofs  of  it  in  the 
religious  rites  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  In  all  sac¬ 
rifices,  even  in  those  offered  to  Zeus  or  to  Athene,  the 
first  invocation  was  always  addressed  to  the  fire.1 
Every  prayer  to  any  god  whatever  must  commence 
and  end  with  a  prayer  to  the  fire.2  At  Olympia,  the 

1  Porphyry,  De  Abstin .,  II.  p.  106.  Plutarch,  De  Frigido. 

*  Homeric  Hymns ,  29  ;  Ibid .,  3,  v.  83.  Plato,  Craiylus ,  18. 


36 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


Jirst  sacrifice  that  assembled  Greece  offered  was  to  the 
hearth-fire,  the  second  was  to  Zeus.1  So,  too,  at  Rome, 
the  first  adoration  was  always  addressed  to  Vesta,  who 
was  no  other  than  the  hearth-fire.  Ovid  says  of  this 
goddess,  that  she  occupied  the  first  place  in  the  religious 
practices  of  men.  We  also  read  in  the  hymns  of  the 
Rig  -Veda,  “  Agni  must  be  invoked  before  all  the  other 
gods.  We  pronounce  his  venerable  name  before  that 
of  all  the  other  immortals.  O  Agni,  whatever  other 
god  we  honor  with  our  sacrifices,  the  holocaust  is 
always  offered  to  thee.”2  It  is  certain,  therefore,  that 
at  Rome  in  Ovid’s  time,  and  in  India  in  the  time  of 
the  Brahmins,  the  fire  of  the  hearth  took  precedence 
of  all  other  gods;  not  that  Jupiter  and  Brahma  had 
not  acquired  a  greater  importance  in  the  religion  of 
men,  but  it  was  remembered  that  the  hearth-fire  was 
much  older  than  those  gods.  For  many  centuries  he 
had  held  the  first  place  in  the  religious  worship,  and 
the  newer  and  greater  gods  could  not  dispossess  him 
of  this  place. 

The  symbols  of  this  religion  became  modified  in  the 
course  of  ages.  When  the  people  of  Greece  and  Italy 
began  to  represent  their  gods  as  persons,  and  to  give 
each  one  a  proper  name  and  a  human  form,  the  old 
worship  of  the  hearth-fire  submitted  to  the  common 
law  which  human  intelligence,  in  that  period,  imposed 
upon  every  religion.  The  altar  of  the  sacred  fire  was 
personified.  They  called  it  korla,  Vesta;  the  name 
was  the  same  in  Latin  and  in  Greek,  and  was  the  same 

Hesychius ,  à<p’  iartaç.  Diodorus,  VI.  2.  Aristoph.,  Birds , 
665. 

1  Pausanias,  V.  14. 

*  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deorum ,  II.  27.  Ovid,  Fast .,  VI.  304. 


CHAP.  III. 


THE  SACKED  EIRE. 


37 


that  in  the  common  and  primitive  language  designated 
an  altar.  By  a  process  frequent  enough,  a  common 
noun  had  become  a  proper  name.  By  degrees  a  legend 
was  formed.  They  pictured  this  divinity  to  themselves 
as  wearing  a  female  form,  because  the  word  used  for 
altar  was  of  the  feminine  gender.  They  even  went  so 
far  as  to  represent  this  goddess  in  statues.  Still  they 
could  never  efface  the  primitive  belief,  according  to 
which  this  divinity  was  simply  the  fire  upon  the  altar; 
and  Ovid  himself  was  forced  to  admit  that  Vesta  was 
nothing  else  than  a  M  living  flame.”  1 

If  we  compare  this  worship  of  the  sacred  fire  with 
the  worship  of  the  dead,  of  which  we  have  already 
spoken,  we  shall  perceive  a  close  relation  between 
them. 

Let  us  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  this  fire,  which 
was  kept  burning  upon  the  hearth,  was  not,  in  the 
thoughts  of  men,  the  fire  of  material  nature.  What 
they  saw  in  it  was  not  the  purely  physical  element  that 
warms  and  burns,  that  transforms  bodies,  melts  metals, 
and  becomes  the  powerful  instrument  of  human  in¬ 
dustry.  The  fire  of  the  hearth  is  of  quite  another 
nature.  It  is  a  pure  fire,  which  can  be  produced  only 
by  the  aid  of  certain  rites,  and  can  be  kept  up  only  with 
certain  kinds  of  wood.  It  is  a  chaste  fire  ;  the  union 
of  the  sexes  must  be  removed  far  from  its  presence.2 
They  pray  to  it  not  only  for  riches  and  health,  but  also 
for  purity  of  heart,  temperance,  and  wisdom.  “  Render 
us  rich  and  flourishing,”  says  an  Orphic  hymn;  “make 
us  also  wise  and  chaste.”  Thus  the  hearth-fire  is  a  sort 
of  a  moral  being;  it  shines,  and  warms,  and  cooks  the 

1  Ovid,  Fast.,  VI.  291. 

*  Hesiod,  Opera ,  731.  Plutarch,  Comm,  on  lies.,  frag.  43. 


38 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


sacred  food  ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  thinks,  and  has  a 
conscience  ;  it  knows  men’s  duties,  and  sees  that  they 
are  fulfilled.  One  might  call  it  human,  for  it  has  the 
double  nature  of  man  ;  physically,  it  blazes  up,  it  moves, 
it  lives,  it  procures  abundance,  it  prepares  the  repast, 
it  nourishes  the  body;  morally,  it  has  sentiments  and 
affections,  it  gives  man  purity,  it  enjoins  the  beautiful 
and  the  good,  it  nourishes  the  soul.  One  might  say 
that  it  supports  human  life  in  the  double  series  of  its 
manifestations.  It  is  at  the  same  time  the  source  of 
wealth,  of  health,  of  virtue.  It  is  truly  the  god  of 
human  nature.  Later,  when  this  worship  had  been 
assigned  to  a  second  place  by  Brahma  or  by  Zeus,  there 
still  remained  in  the  hearth-fire  whatever  of  divine  was 
most  accessible  to  man.  It  became  his  mediator  with 
the  gods  of  physical  nature;  it  undertook  to  carry  to 
heaven  the  prayer  and  the  offering  of  man,  and  to  bring 
the  divine  favors  back  to  him.  Still  later,  when  they 
made  the  great  Vesta  of  this  myth  of  the  sacred  fire, 
Vesta  was  the  virgin  goddess.  She  represented  in  the 
world  neither  fecundity  nor  power;  she  was  order,  but 
not  rigorous,  abstract,  mathematical  order,  the  im¬ 
perious  and  unchangeable  law',  which  was  early 

perceived  in  physical  nature.  She  was  moral  order. 
They  imagined  her  as  a  sort  of  universal  soul,  which 
regulated  the  different  movements  of  worlds,  as  the 
human  soul  keeps  order  in  the  human  system. 

Thus  are  we  permitted  to  mok  into  the  way  of 
thinking  of  primitive  generations.  The  principle  of 
this  worship  is  outside  of  physical  nature,  and  is  found 
in  this  little  mysterious  world,  this  microcosm — man. 

This  brings  us  back  to  the  worship  of  the  dead. 
Both  are  of  the  same  antiquity.  They  were  so  closely 
associated  that  the  belief  of  the  ancients  made  but  one 


CHAP.  III. 


THE  SACRED  FIRE. 


39 


religion  of  both-  Hearth-fire  demons,  heroes,  Lares, 
all  were  confounded.1 2  We  see,  from  two  passages  of 
Plautus  and  Columella,  that,  in  the  common  language, 
they  said,  indifferently,  hearth  or  domestic  Lares;  and 
we  know  that,  in  Cicero’s  time,  they  did  not  distinguish 
the  hearth-fire  from  the  Penates,  nor  the  Penates  from 
the  Lares.*  In  Servius  we  read,  “  By  hearth  the  an¬ 
cients  understood  the  Lares;”  and  Virgil  has  writ¬ 
ten,  indifferently,  hearth  for  Penates  and  Penates  for 
hearth.3  In  a  famous  passage  of  the  Æneid,  Hector 
tells  Æneas  that  he  is  going  to  intrust  to  him  the  Trojan 
Penates,  and  it  is  the  hearth-fire  that  he  commits  to 
his  care.  In  another  passage  Æneas,  invoking  these 
same  gods,  calls  them  at  the  same  time  Penates,  Lares, 
and  Vesta.4 

We  have  already  seen  that  those  whom  the  ancients 
called  Lares,  or  heroes,  were  no  other  than  the  souls 
of  the  dead,  to  which  men  attributed  a  superhuman  and 
divine  power.  The  recollection  of  one  of  these  sacred 
dead  was  always  attached  to  the  hearth-fire.  In  ador¬ 
ing  one,  the  worshipper  could  not  forget  the  other. 
They  were  associated  in  the  respect  oh  men,  and  in 
their  prayers.  The  descendants,  when  they  spoke  of  the 
hearth-fire,  recalled  the  name  of  the  ancestor:  u  Leave 
this  place,”  says  Orestes  to  his  sister,  “and  advance 
towards  the  ancient  hearth  of  Pelops,  to  hear  my 

1  Tibullus,  II.  2.  Horace,  Odes,  IV.  11.  Ovid.,  Trist .,  III. 
13  ;  V.  5.  The  Greeks  gave  to  their  domestic  gods  or  heroes 
the  epithet  of  inptoTiot  or  inriov/ot. 

2  Haut.,  Aulul. ,  II.  7,  1G—  In  foco  nostro  Lari.  Columella, 
XT.  1,  19 — Larem  focumqve  familiarem.  Cicero,  Pro  J\)mot 
41  ;  Pro  Quintio,  27,  28.. 

3  Servius,  in  Æn.,  III.  134. 

4  Virgil.  IX.  259;  V.  744. 


40 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


words,”  1  So,  too,  .Æneas,  speaking  of  the  sacred  fire 
which  he  transports  across  the  waters,  designates  it  by 
the  name  of  the  Lar  of  Assaracus,  as  if  he  saw  in  this 
fire  the  soul  of  his  ancestor. 

The  grammarian  Servius,  who  was  very  learned  in 
Greek  and  Roman  antiquities  (which  were  studied 
much  more  in  his  time  than  in  the  time  of  Cicero), 
says  it  was  a  very  ancient  usage  to  bury  the  dead  in 
the  houses;  and  he  adds,  “As  a  result  of  this  custom, 
they  honor  the  Lares  and  Penates  in  their  houses.2 
1  his  expression  establishes  clearly  an  ancient  relation 
between  the  worship  of  the  dead  and  the  hearth-fire. 
We  may  suppose,  therefore,  that  the  domestic  fire  was 
in  the  beginning  only  the  symbol  of  the  worship  of  the 
dead;  that  under  the  stone  of  the  hearth  an  ancestor 
reposed  ;  that  the  fire  was  lighted  there  to  honor  him, 
and  that  this  fire  seemed  to  preserve  life  in  him,  or 
represented  his  soul  as  always  vigilant. 

J  his  is  merely  a  conjecture,  and  we  have  no  proof 
of  it.  Still  it  is  certain  that  the  oldest  generations  of 
the  race  from  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  sprang 
worshipped  both  the  dead  and  the  hearth-fire  —  an  an¬ 
cient  religion  that  did  not  find  its  gods  in  physical 
nature,  but  in  man  himself,  and  that  has  for  its  object 
the  adoration  of  the  invisible  being  which  is  in  us,  the 
moral  and  thinking  power  which  animates  and  governs 
our  bodies. 

This  religion,  after  a  time,  began  to  lose  its  power 
over  the  soul  ;  it  became  enfeebled  by  degrees,  but  it 
did  not  disappear.  Contemporary  with  the  first  ages 
of  the  Aryan  race,  it  became  rooted  so  deeply  in  the 

1  Euripides,  Orestes,  1140-1142. 

Servius,  in  Æn.,  V  .  84  ;  \  1.  152.  See  Plato,  Minos,  p.  315. 


CHAP.  IV. 


DOMESTIC  RELIGION. 


4! 


minds  of  this  race  that  the  brilliant  religion  of  the 
Greek  Olympus  could  not  extirpate  it;  only  Christianity 
could  do  this.  We  shall  see  presently  what  a  power¬ 
ful  influence  this  religion  exercised  upon  the  domestic 
and  social  institutions  of  the  ancients.  It  was  con¬ 
ceived  and  established  in  that  distant  aije  when  this 
race  was  just  forming  its  institutions,  and  determined 
the  direction  of  their  progress. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Domestic  Religion. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  this  ancient  religion 
resembled  those  founded  when  men  became  more  en¬ 
lightened.  For  a  great  number  of  centuries  the  human 
race  has  admitted  no  religious  doctrine  except  on  two 
conditions:  first,  that  it  proclaimed  but  one  god;  and, 
second,  that  it  was  addressed  to  all  men,  and  was 
accessible  to  all,  systematically  rejecting  no  class  or 
race.  But  this  primitive  religion  fulfilled  neither  of 
these  conditions.  Not  only  did*  it  not  offer  one  only 
god  to  the  adoration  of  men,  but  its  gods  did  not  ac¬ 
cept  the  adoration  of  all  men.  They  did  not  offer 
themselves  as  the  gods  of'  the  human  race.  They  did 
not  even  resemble  Brahma,  who  was  at  least  the  god 
of  one  whole  great  caste,  nor  the  Panhellenian  Zeus, 
who  was  the  god  of  an  entire  nation.  In  this  primitive 
religion  each  god  could  be  adored  only  by  one  family. 
Religion  was  purely  domestic. 

We  must  illustrate  this  important  point;  otherwise 
the  intimate  relation  that  existed  between  this  ancient 


42 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


religion  and  the  constitution  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
family  may  not  be  fully  understood. 

The  worship  of  the  dead  in  no  way  resembled  the 
Christian  worship  of  the  saints.  One  of  the  first  rules 
of  this  worship  was,  that  it  could  be  offered  by  each 
family  only  to  those  deceased  persons  who  belonged 
to  it  by  blood.  The  funeral  obsequies  could  be  reli¬ 
giously  performed  only  by  the  nearest  relative.  As  to 
the  funeral  meal,  which  was  renewed  at  stated  seasons, 
the  family  alone  had  a  right  to  take  part  in  it,  and 
every  stranger  was  strictly  excluded.1  They  believed 
that  the  dead  ancestor  accepted  no  offerings  save  from 
his  own  family;  he  desired  no  worship  save  from  his 
own  descendants.  The  presence  of  one  who  was  not 
of  the  family  disturbed  the  rest  of  the  manes.  The 
law,  therefore,  forbade  a  stranger  to  approach  a  tomb.2 
To  touch  a  tomb  with  the  foot,  ever,  by  chance,  was  an 
impious  act,  after  which  the  guilt)  one  was  expected 
to  pacify  the  dead  and  purify  himself.  The  word  by 
which  the  ancients  designated  the  worship  of  the  dead 
is  significant;  the  Greeks  said  the  Romans 

said  parentare.  The  reason  of  this  was  because  the 
prayer  and  offering  were  addressed  by  each  one  only  to 
his  fathers.  The  worship  of  the  dead  was  nothing  more 
than  the  worship  of  ancestors.3  Lucian,  while  ridicul¬ 
ing  common  beliefs,  explains  them  clearly  to  us  when 

1  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  II.  26.  Varro,  L.  L.,  VI.  13  —  Ferunt 
epulas  ad  sepulcrum  quibus  jus  ibi  parentare.  Gaius,  II.  5, 
6 — Si  modo  mortui  funus  ad  nos  pertineat.  Plutarch,  Solon. 

2  Pittacus  omnino  accedere  quemquam  vetat  in  funus  aliorum. 
Cicero,  De  Legib .,  II.  26.  Plutarch,  Solon ,  21.  Demosthenes, 
in  Timocr.  Isæus,  I. 

3  In  the  beginning  at  least;  for  later  the  cities  had  their  local 
and  national  heroes,  as  we  shall  see. 


CriAP.  IY. 


DOMESTIC  RELIGION. 


43 


he  says  the  man  who  has  died  without  leaving  a 
son,  receives  no  offerings,  and  is  exposed  to  perpetual 
hunger.1 

Iri  India,  as  in  Greece,  an  offering  could  be  made  to 
a  dea<I  person  only  by  one  who  had  descended  from 
him.  The  law  of  the  Hindus,  like  Athenian  law,  for¬ 
bade  a  stranger,  even  if  he  were  a  friend,  to  be  invited 
to  the  funeral  banquet.  It  was  so  necessary  that  these 
banquets  should  be  offered  by  the  descendants  of  the 
dead,  and  not  by  others,  that  the  manes,  in  their  resting- 
place,  were  supposed  often  to  pronounce  this  wish: 
“May  there  be  successively  born  of  our  line  sons  who, 
in  all  coining  time,  may  offer  us  rice,  boiled  in  milk, 
honey,  and  clarified  butter.”  2 

Hence  it  was,  that,  in  Greece  and  Rome,  as  in  India, 
it  was  the  son’s  duty  to  make  the  libations  and  the 
sacrifices  to  the  manes  of  his  father  and  of  all  his  ances¬ 
tors.  To  fail  in  this  duty  was  to  commit  the  grossest 
act  of  impiety  possible,  since  the  interruption  of  this 
worship  caused  the  dead  to  fall  from  their  happy  state. 
This  negligence  was  nothing  less  than  the  crime  of 

o  o  o 

parricide,  multiplied  as  many  times  as  there  were  an¬ 
cestors  in  the  family. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  the  sacrifices  were  always  ac¬ 
complished  according  to  the  rites,  if  ihe  provisions 
were  carried  to  the  tomb  on  the  appointed  days,  then 
the  ancestor  became  a  protecting  god.  Hostile  to  all 
who  had  not  descended  from  him,  driving  them  from 
his  tomb,  inflicting  diseases  upon  them  if  they  ap¬ 
proached,  he  was  good  and  provident  to  his  own 
family. 

1  Lucian,  De  Luctu. 

*  Laws  of  Manu ,  III.  138;  III.  274. 


44 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  I. 


There  was  a  perpetual  interchange  of  good  offices 
between  the  living  and  the  dead  of  each  family.  The 
ancestor  received  from  his  descendants  a  series  of 
funeral  banquets,  that  is  to  say,  the  only  enjoyment  that 
was  left  to  him  in  his  second  life.  The  descendant 
received  from  the  ancestor  the  aid  and  strength  of 
which  he  had  need  in  this.  The  living  could  not  do 
without  the  dead,  nor  the  dead  without  the  living. 
Tims  a  powerful  bond  was  established  among  all  the 
generations  of  the  same  family,  which  made  of  it  a 
body  forever  inseparable. 

Every  family  had  its  tomb,  where  its  dead  went  to 
repose,  one  after  another,  always  together.  This  tomb 
was  generally  near  the  house,  nor  far  from  the  door, 
“in  order,”  says  one  of  the  ancients,  “  that  the  sons,  in 
entering  and  leaving  their  dwelling,  might  always  meet 
their  fathers,  and  might  always  address  them  an  invo¬ 
cation.”  1  Thus  the  ancestor  remained  in  the  midst  of 
his  relatives;  invisible,  but  always  present,  he  continued 
to  make  a  part  of  the  family,  and  to  be  its  father.  Im¬ 
mortal,  happy,  divine,  he  was  still  interested  in  all  of 
his  whom  he  had  left  upon  the  earth.  lie  knew  their 
needs,  and  sustained  their  feebleness;  and  lie  who  still 
lived,  who  labored,  who,  according  to  the  ancient  ex¬ 
pression,  had  not  yet  discharged  the  debt  of  existence, 
he  had  near  him  his  guides  and  his  supports — his 
forefathers.  In  the  midst  of  difficulties,  lie  invoked 
their  ancient  wisdom  ;  in  grief,  he  asked  consolation  of 
them  ;  in  danger,  he  asked  their  support,  and  after  a 
fault,  their  pardon. 

Certainly  we  cannot  easily  comprehend  how  a  man 
could  adore  his  father  or  his  ancestor.  To  make  of 

1  Euripides,  Helena ,  1163-1168. 


CHAP.  IV.- 


DOMESTIC  RELIGION. 


45 


man  a  god  appears  to  us  the  reverse  of  îeligion.  It  is 
almost  as  difficult  for  us  to  comprehend  the  ancient 
creeds  of  these  men  ns  it  would  have  been  for  them  to 
understand  ours,  But,  if  we  reflect  that  the  ancients 
had  no  idea  of  creation,  we  shall  see  that  the  mystery 
of  generation  was  for  them  what  the  mystery  of  crea¬ 
tion  is  lor  us.  The  generator  appeared  to  them  to  be 
a  divine  being;  and  they  adored  their  ancestor.  This 
sentiment  must  have  been  very  natural  and  very  strong, 
for  it  appears  as  a  principle  of  religion  in  the  origin 
of  almost  all  human  societies.  We  find  it  among:  the 
Chinese  as  well  as  among  the  ancient  Getæ  and  Scyth¬ 
ians,  among  the  tribes  of  Africa  as  well  as  among 
those  of  the  new  world.1 

The  sacred  fire,  which  was  so  intimately  associated 
with  the  worship  of  the  dead,  belonged,  in  its  essential 
character,  properly  to  each  family.  It  represented  the 
ancestors  ;  it  was  the  providence  of  a  family,  and  had 
nothing:  in  common  with  the  fire  of  a  neighboring: 
family,  which  was  another  providence.2  Every  fire  pro¬ 
tected  its  own  and  repulsed  the  stranger.  The  whole 
of  this  religion  was  enclosed  within  the  walls  of  each 
house.  The  worship  was  not  public.  All  the  cere¬ 
monies,  on  the  contrary,  were  kept  strictly  secret.3 
Performed  in  the  midst  of  the  family  alone,  they  were 
concealed  from  every  stranger.  The  hearth  was  never 
placed  either  outside  the  house  or  even  near  the  outer 

1  Among  the  Etruscans  and  the  Romans  it  was  a  custom  for 
every  religious  family  to  keep  the  images  of  its  ancestors  ranged 
around  the  atrium.  Were  these  images  simple  family  portraits, 
or  were  they  idols? 

2  'Eot'm  TcatQwa,  focus  patrius.  So  in  the  Vedas  Agni  is 
sometimes  invoked  as  a  domestic  god. 

3  Isæus,  VIII.  17,  18. 


46 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  l. 


door,  where  it  would  have  been  too  ensy  to  see.1  The 
Greeks  always  placed  it  in  an  enclosure,2 3  which  pro¬ 
tected  it  from  the  contact,  or  even  the  gaze,  of  the 
profane.  The  Romans  concealed  it  in  the  interior  of 
the  house.  All  these  gods,  the  sacred  fire,  the  Lares, 
and  the  Manes,  were  called  the  consecrated  gods,  or 
gods  of  the  interior.  To  all  the  acts  of  this  religion 
secrecy  was  necessary/  If  a  ceremony  was  looked 
upon  by  a  stranger,  it  was  disturbed,  defiled,  made  un¬ 
fortunate  simply  by  this  look. 

I  here  were  neither  uniform  rules  nor  a  common 
ritual  for  this  domestic  religion.  Each  family  was 
most  completely  independent.  No  external  power  had 
the  right  to  regulate  either  the  ceremony  or  the  creed. 
There  was  no  other  priest  than  the  father:  as  a  priest, 
he  knew  no  hierarchy.  The  pontifex  of  Rome,  or  the 
archon  of  Athens,  might,  indeed,  ascertain  if  the  father 
of  a  family  performed  all  his  religious  ceremonies;  but 
he  had  no  right  to  order  the  least  modification  of  them. 
Suo  quisque  ritu  sacrificiel  faciat  —  such  was  the  abso¬ 
lute  rule.4  Every  family  had  its  ceremonies,  which  were 
peculiar  to  itself,  its  particular  celebrations,  its  formulas 
of  prayer,  its  hymns.5  The  father,  sole  interpreter  and 
sole  priest  of  his  religion,  alone  had  the  right  to  teach 
it,  and  could  teach  it  only  to  his  son.  The  rites,  the 
forms  of  prayer,  the  chants,  which  formed  an  essential 
part  of  this  domestic  religion,  were  a  patrimony,  a  sacred 
property,  which  the  family  shared  with  no  one,  and 

1  This  enclosure  was  called  'içxoç. 

2  Qtni  ni'xtoi,  dii  Penates. 

3  Cicero.  De  Arusp.  Resp.,  IT. 

4  Varro,  De  Ling.  Lot .,  VII.  88. 

6  Hesiod,  Opera,  7Ô3.  Macrobius,  Sat.,  I.  10.  Cic.,  Da 
Leg ib.,  II.  11. 


s 


CHAP.  IV. 


DOMESTIC  RELIGION. 


47 


which  they  were  even  forbidden  to  reveal  to  strangers. 
It  was  the  same  in  India.  “  I  am  strong  against  my 
enemies,”  says  the  Brahmin,  “from  the  ->ongs  which  I 
receive  from  my  family,  and  which  my  father  lias  trans¬ 
mitted  to  me.”  1 

Thus  religion  dwelt  not  in  temples,  but  in  the  house  ; 
each  house  had  its  gods;  each  god  protected  one  fam¬ 
ily  only,  and  was  a  god  only  in  one  house.  We  cannot 
reasonably  suppose  that  a  religion  of  this  character  was 
revealed  to  man  by  the  powerful  imagination  of  one 
among  them,  or  that  it  was  taught  to  them  by  a  priestly 
caste.  It  grew  up  spontaneously  in  the  human  mind  ; 
its  cradle  was  the  family;  eacli  family  created  its  own 
gods. 

This  religion  could  be  propagated  only  by  generation. 
The  father,  in  giving  life  to  his  son,  gave  him  at  the 
same  time  his  creed,  his  worship,  the  right  to  continue 
the  sacred  fire,  to  offer  the  funeral  meal,  to  pronounce 
the  formulas  of  prayer.  Generation  established  a  mys¬ 
terious  bond  between  the  infant,  who  was  born  to  life, 
and  all  the  gods  of  the  family.  Indeed,  these  gods 
were  his  family  —  ôsol  tyyaveïç  ;  they  were  of  his  blood 
—  dcol  (jui'uifuoi.2  The  child,  therefore,  received  at  his 
birth  the  right  to  adore  them,  and  to  offer  them  sac¬ 
rifices;  and  later,  when  death  should  have  deified  him, 
he  also  would  be  counted,  in  his  turn,  among  these  gods 
of  the  family. 

1  Rig-  Veda ,  Langlois’  trans.,  v.  i.  p.  113.  The  Laws  of 
Manu  often  mention  rites  peculiar  to  each  family.  VII.  3; 
IX.  7. 

*  Sophocles,  Antig .,  199-,  Ibid.,  659.  Comp,  nariicooi  ôiol  in 
Aristophanes,  Wasps,  388;  Æschylus,  Pers.,  404;  Sophocles, 
Plectra,  411;  ôeol  ye?  e'ÔLoj,  Plato,  Laws ,  V.  p.  729;  Di  Generis 
Ovid,  Fast.,  II. 


48 


ANCIENT  BELIEFS. 


BOOK  T. 


But  we  must  notice  this  peculiarity —  that  the  domes¬ 
tic  religion  was  transmitted  only  from  male  to  male. 

This  was  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the  idea  that  genera¬ 
tion  was  due  entirely  to  the  males.1  The  belief  of 
primitive  ages,  as  we  find  it  in  the  Vedas,  and  as  we 
find  vestiges  of  it  in  all  Greek  and  Roman  law,  whm 
that  the  reproductive  power  resided  exclusively  in  the 
father,  The  father  alone  possessed  the  mysterious 
principle  of  existence,  and  transmitted  the  spark  of 
life.  From  this  old  notion  it  followed  that  the  domestic 
worship  always  passed  from  male  to  male  ;  that  a  woman 
participated  in  it  only  through  her  father  or  her  hus¬ 
band;  and,  finally,  that  after  death  women  had  not  the 
same  part  as  men  in  the  worship  and  the  ceremonies 
ot  the  funeral  meal.  Still  other  important  conse¬ 
quences  in  private  law  and  in  the  constitution  of  the 
family  resulted  from  this:  we  shall  see  them  as  we 
proceed. 

1  The  Vedas  call  the  sacred  fire  the  cause  of  male  posterity. 
See  the  Mitakcha1)  a,  Orianues’  trans.,  p.  139. 


BOOK  SECOND. 


THE  FAMILY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Religion  was  the  constituent  Principle  of  the  ancient 

Family. 

• 

If  we  transport  ourselves  in  thought  to  those  an¬ 
cient  generations  of  men,  we  find  in  each  house  an 
altar,  and  around  this  altar  the  family  assembled.  The 
family  meets  every  morning  to  address  its  first  prayers 
to  the  sacred  fire,  and  in  the  evening  to  invoke  it  for  a 
last  time.  In  the  course  of  the  day  the  members  are 
once  more  assembled  near  the  fire  for  the  meal,  of 
which  they  partake  piously  after  prayer  and  libation. 
In  all  these  religious  acts,  hymns,  which  their  fathers 
have  handed  down,  are  sung  in  common  by  the  family. 

Outside  the  house,  near  at  hand,  in  a  neighboring 
field,  there  is  a  tomb  —  the  second  home  of  this  family. 
There  several  generations  of  ancestors  repose  together; 
death  has  not  separated  them.  They  remain  grouped 
in  this  second  existence,  and  continue  to  form  an  in 
dissoluble  family.1 * * 4 

1  The  use  of  family  tombs  by  the  ancients  is  incontestable  ;  it 

disappeared  only  when  the  beliefs  relative  to  the  worship  of  the 

dead  became  obscured.  The  words  ru(poç  nurç^uç,  rûtpoç  *•>» 

4  49 


50 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


Between  the  living  part  and  the  dead  part  of  the 
family  there  is  only  this  distance  of  a  few  steps  which 
separates  the  house  from  the  tomb.  On  certain  days, 
which  are  determined  for  each  one  by  his  domestic 
religion,  the  living  assemble  near  their  ancestors  ;  they 
offer  them  the  funeral  meal,  pour  out  milk  and  wine  to 
them,  lay  out  cakes  and  fruits,  or  burn  the  flesh  of  a 
victim  to  them.  In  exchange  for  these  offerings  they 
ask  protection  ;  they  call  these  ancestors  their  gods, 
and  ask  them  to  render  the  fields  fertile,  the  house 
prosperous,  and  their  hearts  virtuous. 

Generation  alone  was  not  the  foundation  of  tkn 
ancient  family.  What  proves  this  is,  that  the  sister  diu 
not  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  family  as  the  brother; 
that  the  emancipated  son  and  the  married  daughter 
ceased  completely  to  form  a  part  of  the  family;  and,  in 
fine,  several  other  important  provisions  of  the  Greek 

nQoyôvtav,  appear  continually  in  Greek  writers,  as  tumulus  pa- 
trius  or  avitus,  scpulcrum  gentis,  are  found  in  Roman  writers. 
See  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul .,  28;  in  Macart.,  79.  Lycurgus,  in 
Leocr.,  25.  Cicero,  De  Offic.,  I.  17.  De  Legib.,  II.  22  —Mortuum 
extra  gentem  inferri  fas  negant.  Ovid,  Trist.,  IV.  3,  45. 
Velleius,  II.  119.  Suetonius,  Nero ,  50;  Tiberius ,  1.  Digest , 
XI.  5;  XVIII.  1,  6.  There  is  an  old  anecdote  that  shows  how 
necessary  it  was  thought  to  be  that  every  one  should  be  buried 
in  the  tomb  of  his  family.  It  is  related  that  the  Lacedæmonians, 
when  about  to  join  battle  with  the  Messenians,  attached  to  their 
right  arms  their  name,  and  those  of  their  fathers,  in  order  that,  in 
case  of  death,  each  body  might  be  recognized  on  the  field  of 
battle,  and  transported  to  the  paternal  tomb.  Justin,  III.  5. 
See  Æschylus,  Sept.,  889  (914),  t iupwv  naxQwwv  Xà/ai.  The 
Greek  orators  frequently  refer  to  this  custom  :  Isæus,  Lysias, 
or  Demosthenes,  when  he  wishes  to  prove  that  a  man  be¬ 
longs  to  a  certain  family,  and  has  the  right  to  inherit  its  property, 
rarely  fails  to  say  that  this  man’s  father  is  buried  in  the  tomb  of 
this  family. 


CHAP.  I.  RELIGION  THE  CONSTITUENT  PRINCIPLE.  51 


and  Roman  laws,  that  we  shall  have  occasion  to  ex¬ 
amine  farther  along. 

Nor  is  the  family  principle  natural  affection.  For 
Greek  and  Roman  law  makes  no  account  of  this  senti¬ 
ment.  The  sentiment  may  exist  in  the  heart,  but  it 
is  not  in  the  law.  The  father  may  have  affection  for 
his  daughter,  but  he  cannot  will  her  his  property.  The 
laws  of  succession  —  that  is  to  say,  those  laws  which 
most  faithfully  reflect  the  ideas  that  men  had  of  the 
family  —  are  in  open  contradiction  both  with  the  order 
of  birth  and  with  natural  affection.1 

The  historians  of  Roman  laws,  having  very  justly 
remarked  that  neither  birth  nor  affection  was  the  foun¬ 
dation  of  the  Roman  family,  have  concluded  that  this 
foundation  must  be  found  in  the  power  of  the  father 
or  husband.  They  make  a  sort  of  primordial  institu¬ 
tion  of  this  power;  but  they  do  not  explain  how  this 
power  was  established,  unless  it  was  by  the  superiority 
of  strength  of  the  husband  over  the  wife,  and  of  the 
father  over  the  children.  Now,  w,e  deceive  ourselves 
sadly  when  we  thus  place  force  as  the  origin  of  law. 
We  shall  see  farther  on  that  the  authority  of  the  father 
or  husband,  far  from  having  been  a  first  cause,  was 
itself  an  effect;  it  was  derived  from  religion,  and  was 
established  by  religion.  Superior  strength,  therefore, 
was  not  the  principle  that  established  the  family. 

The  members  of  the  ancient  family  were  united  by 
something  more  powerful  than  birth,  affection,  or  phys¬ 
ical  strength  ;  this  was  the  religion  of  the  sacred  fire, 
and  of  dead  ancestors.  This  caused  the  family  to  form 

1  It  must  be  understood  that  we  here  speak  of  the  most  an¬ 
cient  law.  We  shall  soon  see  that,  at  a  later  date,  these  early 
laws  were  modified. 


52 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  « 


a  single  body,  both  in  this  life  and  in  the  next.  The 
ancient  family  was  a  religious  rather  than  a  natural 
association  ;  and  we  shall  see  presently  that  the  wile 
was  counted  in  the  family  only  after  the  sacred  cere¬ 
mony  of  marriage  had  initiated  her  into  the  wo<ship; 
that  the  son  was  no  longer  counted  in  it  when  he  had 
renounced  the  worship,  or  had  been  emancipated;  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  an  adopted  son  was  counted  a  real 
son,  because,  though  he  had  not  the  ties  of  blood,  he 
had  something  better —  a  community  of  worship  ;  that 
the  heir  who  refused  to  adopt  the  worship  of  this  fam¬ 
ily  had  no  right  to  the  succession;  and,  finally,  that 
relationship  and  the  right  of  inheritance  were  governed 
not  by  birth,  but  by  the  rights  of  participation  in  the 
worship,  such  as  religion  had  established  them.  Re¬ 
ligion,  it  is  true, did  not  create  the  family;  but  certainly 
it  gave  the  family  its  rules;  and  hence  it  comes  that 
the  constitution  of  the  ancient  family  was  so  different 
from  what  it  would  have  been  if  it  had  owed  its  foun¬ 
dation  to  natural  affection. 

The  ancient  Greek  langunge  has  a  very  significant 
word  to  designate  a  family.  It  is  inla-nov,  a  word 
which  signifies,  literally,  that  which  is  near  a  hearth . 
A  family  was  a  group  of  persons  whom  religion  per¬ 
mitted  to  invoke  the  same  sacred  fire,  and  to  offe?  the 
f-ineral  repast  to  the  same  ancestors. 


CHAP  H. 


MARRIAGE. 


53 


CHAPTER  II. 

Marriage. 

The  first  institution  that  the  domestic  religion  estais 
Ashed,  probably,  was  marriage. 

We  must  remark  that  this  worship  of  the  sacred  fire 
and  of  ancestors,  which  was  transmitted  from  male  to 
male,  did  not  belong,  after  ail,  exclusively  to  man  ; 
woman  had  a  part  in  it.  As  a  daughter,  she  took  part 
in  the  religious  acts  of  her  father;  as  a  wife,  in  those 
of  lier  husband. 

From  this  alone  we  see  the  essential  character  of  the 
conjugal  union  among  the  ancients.  Two  families  live 
side  by  side;  but  they  have  different  gods.  In  one,  a 
young  daughter  takes  a  part,  from  her  infancy,  in  the 
religion  of  her  father;  she  invokes  his  sacred  fire; 
every  day  she  offers  it  libations.  She  surrounds  it  with 
flowers  and  garlands  on  festal  days.  She  asks  its  pro¬ 
tection,  and  returns  thanks  for  its  favors.  This  paternal 
fire  is  her  god.  Let  a  young  man  of  the  neighboring 
family  ask  her  in  marriage,  and  something  more  is  at 
stake  than  to  pass  from  one  house  to  the  other.  She 
must  abandon  the  paternal  fire,  and  henceforth  invoke 
that  of  the  husband.  She  must  abandon  her  religion, 
practise  other  rites,  and  pronounce  other  prayers.  She 
must  give  up  the  god  of  her  infancy,  and  put  herself 
under  the  protection  of  a  god  whom  she  knows  not. 
Let  her  not  hope  to  remain  faithful  to  the  one  while 
honoring  the  other;  for  in  this  religion  it  is  an  im- 
mutable  principle  that  the  same  person  cannot  invoke 
two  sacred  fires  or  two  series  of  ancestors.  “From  the 


54 


THE  FAMILY. 


ROOK  II. 


hour  of  marriage,”  says  one  of  the  ancients,  “the  wife 
has  no  longer  anything  in  common  with  the  domestic 
religion  of  her  fathers:  she  sacrifices  at  the  hearth  of 
her  husband.”  1 

Marriage  is,  therefore,  a  grave  step  for  the  young  girl, 
and  not  less  grave  for  the  husband  ;  for  this  religion 
requires  that  one  shall  have  been  born  near  the  sacred 
fire,  in  order  to  have  the  light  to  sacrifice  to  it.  And 
yet  he  is  now  about  to  bring  a  stranger  to  this  hearth  ; 
with  her  he  will  perform  the  mysterious  ceremonies  of 
his  worship  ;  he  will  reveal  the  rites  and  formulas  which 
are  the  patrimony  of  his  family.  There  is  nothing  more 
precious  than  this  heritage;  these  gods,  these  rites, 
these  hymns  which  he  has  received  from  his  fathers, 
are  what  protect  him  in  this  life,  and  promise  him 
riches,  happiness,  and  virtue.  And  yet,  instead  of 
keeping  to  himself  this  tutelary  power,  as  the  savage 
keeps  his  idol  or  his  amulet,  he  is  going  to  admit  a 
woman  to  share  it  with  him. 

Thus,  when  wre  penetrate  the  thoughts  of  these  an¬ 
cient  men,  we  see  of  how  great  importance  to  them  was 
the  conjugal  union,  and  how  necessary  to  it  was  the 
intervention  of  religion.  Was  it  not  quite  necessary 
that  the  young  girl  should  be  initiated  into  the  religion 
that  she  was  henceforth  to  follow  by  some  sacred 
ceremony?  Was  not  a  sort  of  ordination  or  adoption 
necessary  for  her  to  become  a  priestess  of  this  sacred 
tire,  to  which  she  was  not  attached  by  birth  ? 

Marriage  was  this  sacred  ceremony,  which  was  to 
produce  these  important  effects.  The  Greek  and  Ro¬ 
man  writers  habitually  designate  marriage  by  a  word 
indicative  of  a  religious  act.2  Pollux,  who  lived  in  the 

1  Stephen  of  Byzantium,  ncirça. 

*  Qvttr  yup*v,  sacrum  nuptiale . 


CHAP.  II. 


MARRIAGE. 


55 


time  of  the  Automnes,  but  who  was  well  instructed  in 
the  ancient  usages  of  his  language,  says,  that  in  ancient 
times,  instead  of  designating  marriage  by  its  particular 
name,  yàuoç^  they  designated  it  simply  by  the  word 
t éloçj  which  signifies  sacred  ceremony,1  as  if  marriage 
had  been,  in  those  ancient  times,  the  ceremony  sacred 
above  all  others. 

Now,  the  religion  that  created  marriage  was  not  that 
of  Jupiter,  of  Juno,  or  of  the  other  gods  of  Olympus. 
The  ceremony  did  not  take  place  in  a  temple;  it  was 
performed  in  a  house,  and  the  domestic  god  presided. 
When  the  religion  of  the  gods  of  the  sky  became  pre¬ 
ponderant,  men  could  not  help  invoking  them  also  in 
the  prayers  of  marriage,  it  is  true  ;  it  even  became 
habitual  to  go  to  the  temple  before  the  marriage,  and 
offer  sacrifices  to  these  gods.  These  sacrifices  were 
called  the  preludes  of  marriage;2 3  but  the  principal  and 
essential  part  of  the  ceremony  always  took  place  before 
the  domestic  hearth. 

Among  the  Greeks  the  marriage  ceremony  consisted, 
»o  to  speak,  of  three  acts.  The  first  took  place  before 
the  hearth  of  the  father,  èyyvyaiç  ;  the  third  before  the 
hearth  of  the  husband,  t Hog  ;  the  second  was  the 
passage  from  the  one  to  the  other, 

1.  In  the  paternal  dwelling,  in  the  presence  of  the 
future  bridegroom,  the  father,  surrounded  ordinarily 

1  Pollux,  III.  3,  38. 

2  IIuoTtXtia,  Ti{)oya^ua,  Pollux,  III.  38. 

3  Homer,  111.,  XVIII.  391.  Hesiod,  Scutum ,  v.  275.  Herod¬ 
otus,  VI.  129,  130.  Plutarch,  Theseus ,  10;  Lycurg.,  passim. 
Solon,  20;  Aristides,  20;  Gr.  Quest.,  27.  Demosthenes,  in 
Stephanum ,  IL  Isæus,  III.  39.  Euripides,  Helena,  722-725  ; 
Then.,  345.  Harpocration,  v.  rauijha.  Pollux,  III.  c.  3.  The 
same  usage  among  the  Macedonians.  Quintus  Curtius,  VIII.  16. 


56 


TI1E  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


by  his  family,  offers  a  sacrifice.  The  sacrifice  con¬ 
cluded,  he  declares  —  pronouncing  a  sacramental  formu¬ 
la —  that  he  gives  his  daughter  to  the  young  man. 
This  declaration  is  absolutely  indispensable  to  the 
marriage  ;  for  the  young  girl  would  not  be  able  to  go 
at  once  to  worship  at  the  hearth  of  her  husband,  if  her 
father  had  not  already  separated  her  from  the  pater- 
tal  hearth.  To  enable  her  to  adopt  her  new  religion, 
she  must  be  freed  from  every  bond  that  attaches  her 
to  her  first  religion. 

2.  The  young  girl  is  carried  to  the  house  of  the  hus¬ 
band.  Sometimes  the  husband  himself  conducts  her. 
In  certain  cities  the  duty  of  bringing  her  belongs  to 
one  of  those  men  who,  among  the  Greeks,  were  clothed 
with  a  sacerdotal  character,  and  who  were  called 
heralds.  The  bride  was  usually  placed  upon  a  car;  her 
face  was  covered  with  a  veil,  and  on  her  head  was  a 
crown.  The  crown,  as  we  shall  often  have  occasion 
to  see,  was  used  in  all  the  ceremonies  of  this  worship. 
She  was  dressed  in  white.  White  was  the  color  of  the 
vestments  in  all  the  religious  acts.  She  was  preceded 
by  a  torch  —  the  nuptial  torch.  For  the  whole  dis¬ 
tance  they  sang  around  her  religious  hymns,  whose 
refrain  was  &  fynp',  tyivoue.  This  hymn  they  called 
the  hymeneal ,  and  the  importance  of  this  sacred  chant 
was  so  great  that  they  gave  its  name  to  the  whole 
ceremonv. 

The  bride  dares  not  go  of  her  own  accord  into  her 
new  dwelling.  Her  husband  must  take  her,  and  simu¬ 
late  a  seizure  by  force.  She  must  cry  out,  and  the 
women  that  accompany  her  must  pretend  to  defend 
her.  Why  this  rite  ?  Is  it  a  symbol  of  the  modesty 
of  the  bride?  This  is  hardly  probable:  the  moment  for 
shame  has  not  yet  come  ;  for  what  is  now  to  take  place 


CHAP.  IL 


MARRIAGE. 


57 


is  a  religious  ceremony.  Was  it  not  to  mark  more 
strongly  that  the  wife,  who  was  now  to  sacrifice  to  this 
fire,  had  herself  no  right  there,  that  she  did  not  ap¬ 
proach  it  of  her  own  free  will,  and  that  the  master  of 
the  place  and  of  the  god  introduced  her  by  an  act  of 
his  power?  However  this  may  be,  after  a  feigned 
struggle,  the  husband  raises  her  in  his  arms,  and  carries 
her  through  the  doorway,  taking  great  care,  however, 
that  her  feet  do  not  touch  the  sill. 

What  precedes  is  only  a  preparation,  a  prelude  to 
the  ceremony.  The  sacred  act  now  commences  in  the 
house. 

3.  They  approach  the  hearth;  the  wife  is  brought 
into  the  presence  of  the  domestic  divinity.  She  is 
sprinkled  with  the  lustral  water.  She  touches  the 
sacred  fire.  Prayers  are  repeated.  Finally,  the  husband 
and  wife  share  between  themselves  a  cake  or  a  loaf. 

This  sort  of  light  meal,  which  commences  and  ends 
with  a  libation  and  a  prayer,  this  sharing  of  nourish¬ 
ment  in  presence  of  the  fire,  puts  the  husband  and  wife 
in  religious  communion  with  each  other,  and  in  com¬ 
munion  with  the  domestic  gods. 

The  Roman  marriage  closely  resembled  that  of 
Greece,  and,  like  it,  comprised  three  acts  —  traditio , 
deductio  in  domum ,  co7ifarreatio.'1 


1  Varro,  L.  L.,  61.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  II.  25,  26. 
Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  558.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest .,  1.29;  Romul., 
15;  Plin.,  N.  IL ,  XVIII.  3.  Tacit.  Ann.,  IV.  16;  XI.  27. 
Juvenal,  Sat.  X.  329-336.  Gaius,  Inst.,  I.  112.  Uplian,  IX. 
Digest,  XXIII.  2,  1.  Festus,  v.  Rapt.  Macrobius,  Sat.,  I.  15. 
Servius,  ad  Æn .,  IV.  168.  The  same  custom  among  the  Etrus¬ 
cans,  Varro,  De  Re  Rust.,  II.  4.  The  same  custom  among  the 
ancient  Hindus,  Laws  of  Manu,  III.  27-30,  172;  V.  152;  VIII. 
227;  IX.  194.  Mitakchara,  Orianne’s  trans.,  p.  166,  167,  236, 


58 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


1.  The  young  girl  quits  the  paternal  hearth.  As  she 
is  not  attached  to  this  hearth  by  her  own  right,  but 
through  the  father  of  the  family,  the  authority  of  the 
father  only  can  detach  her  from  it.  The  tradition  is, 
therefore,  an  indispensable  ceremony. 

2.  The  young  girl  is  conducted  to  the  house  of  the 
husband.  As  in  Greece,  she  is  veiled.  She  wears  a 
crown,  and  a  nuptial  torch  precedes  the  cortege.  Those 
about  her  sing  an  ancient  religious  hymn.  The  words 
of  this  hymn  changed  doubtless  with  time,  accom¬ 
modating  themselves  to  the  variations  of  belief,  or  to 
those  of  the  language  ;  but  the  sacramental  refrain 
continued  from  age  to  age  without  change.  It  was 
the  word  Talassie ,  a  word  whose  sense  the  Romans  of 
Horace’s  time  no  more  understood  than  the  Greeks 
understood  the  word  ti/iévais,  and  which  was,  probably, 
the  sacred  and  inviolable  remains  of  an  ancient  formula. 

The  cortege  stops  before  the  house  of  the  husband. 
There  the  bride  is  presented  with  fire  and  water.  The 
fire  is  the  emblem  of  the  domestic  divinity  ;  the  water 
is  the  lustral  water,  that  serves  the  family  for  all 
religious  acts.  To  introduce  the  bride  into  the  house, 
violence  must  be  pretended,  as  in  Greece.  The  hus¬ 
band  must  take  her  in  his  arms,  and  carry  her  over 
the  sill,  without  allowing  her  feet  to  touch  it. 

3.  The  bride  is  then  led  before  the  hearth,  where  the 
Penates,  and  all  the  domestic  gods,  and  the  images  of 
ancestors,  are  grouped  around  the  sacred  fire.  As  in 
Greece,  the  husband  and  wife  offer  a  sacrifice,  pouring 
out  a  libation,  pronouncing  prayers,  and  eating  a  cake 
of  wheaten  flour  {jpanis  farreus ).* 

1  We  shall  speak  presently  of  other  forms  of  marriage  in  use 
among  the  Romans,  in  which  religion  had  no  part.  Let  it  suffice 
to  say  here,  that  the  sacred  marriage  appears  to  us  to  he  the 


CHAP.  II. 


MARRIAGE 


59 


This  cake,  eaten  during  the  recitation  of  prayers,  in 
the  presence  and  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  domestic 
divinities,  makes  the  union  of  the  husband  and  wife 
sacred.  Henceforth  they  are  associated  in  the  same 
worship.  The  wife  has  the  same  gods,  the  same  rites, 
the  same  prayers,  the  same  festivals  as  her  husband. 
Hence  this  old  definition  of  marriage,  which  the  jurists 
have  preserved  to  us:  Nuptice  sunt  divini  juris  et 
humani  communication  and  this  other:  Uxor  soda 
humanœ  rei  atque  divinœ.1  This  is  because  the  wife 
participates  in  the  worship  of  the  husband;  this  wife 
whom,  according  to  the  expression  of  Plato,  the  gods 
themselves  have  introduced  into  the  house. 

The  wife,  thus  married,  also  worships  the  dead;  but 
it  is  not  to  her  own  ancestors  that  she  carries  the  fune¬ 
ral  repast.  She  no  longer  has  this  right.  Marriage 
has  completely  detached  her  from  the  family,  and  has 
interrupted  all  the  religious  relations  that  she  had  with 
it.  Her  offerings  she  carries  to  the  ancestors  of  her 
husband;  she  is  of  their  family;  they  have  become  her 
ancestors.  Marriage  has  been  for  her  a  second  birth; 
she  is  henceforth  the  daughter  of  her  husband  ;  jilice 
loco ,  say  the  jurists.  One  could  not  belong  to  two 
families,  or  to  two  domestic  religions;  the  wife  belongs 
entirely  to  her  husband’s  family,  and  to  his  religion. 
We  shall  see  the  consequences  of  this  rule  in  the  right 
of  succession. 

The  institution  of  sacred  marriage  must  be  as  old  in 
the  Indo-European  race  as  the  domestic  religion  ;  for 
the  one  could  not  exist  without  the  other.  This  religion 

oldest;  for  it  corresponds  to  the  most  ancient  beliefs,  and  dis¬ 
appeared  only  as  those  beliefs  died  out. 

1  Digest,  XXIII.  title  2.  Code,  IX.  32,  4.  Dionysius  of 
Halicarnassus,  II.  25:  Koivm'oç  xQtjpÙTcjv  xul  teçùv.  Stephen 
of  .Byzantium, 


60 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


taught  man  that  the  conjugal  union  was  something 
more  than  a  relation  of  the  sexes  and  a  fleeting:  afleo 
lion,  and  united  man  and  wife  by  the  powerful  bond  of 
the  same  worship  and  the  same  belief.  The  marriage 
ceremony,  too,  was  so  solemn,  and  produced  effects  so 
grave,  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  these  men  did  not 
think  it  permitted  or  possible  to  have  more  than  one 
wife  in  each  house.  Such  a  religion  could  not  admit 
of  polygamy. 

We  can  understand,  too,  that  such  a  marriage  was 
indissoluble,  and  that  divorce  was  almost  impossible. 
The  Roman  law  did  indeed  permit  the  dissolution  of 
the  marriage  by  coemptio ,  or  by  usus .  But  the  dissolu¬ 
tion  of  the  religious  marriage  was  very  difficult.  For 
that,  a  new  sacred  ceremony  was  necessary,  as  religion 
alone  could  separate  what  religion  had  united.  The 
effect  of  the  confarreatio  could  be  destroyed  only  by 
the  diffarreatio.  The  husband  and  wife  who  wished 
to  separate  appeared  for  the  last  time  before  the  com¬ 
mon  hearth  ;  a  priest  and  witnesses  were  present.  As 
on  the  day  of  marriage,  a  cake  of  wheaten  flour  was 
presented  to  the  husband  and  wife.1  But,  instead  of 
sharing  it  between  them,  they  rejected  it.  Then,  in¬ 
stead  of  prayers,  they  pronounced  formulas  of  a  strange, 
severe,  spiteful,  frightful  character,2  a  soit  of  maledic¬ 
tion,  by  which  the  wife  renounced  the  worship  and 
gods  of  the  husband.  From  that  moment  the  religious 
bond  was  broken.  The  community  of  worship  having 
ceased,  every  other  common  interest  ceased  to  exist, 
and  the  marriage  was  dissolved. 

1  Festus,  v.  Diffarreatio.  Pollux,  III.  c.  3:  anonountj. 
We  read,  in  an  inscription,  Sacerdos  confarreationum  et  diffar • 
reationum.  Orelli,  No.  2648. 

2  a/LXixora,  oxuôçwna.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest  ,  50. 


CHAP  III. 


CONTINUITY  OF  THE  FAMILY. 


6i 


CHAPTER  III. 

Continuity  of  the  Family.  Celibacy  forbidden.  Divorce 
in  Case  of  Sterility.  Inequality  between  the  Son  and 
Daughter. 

The  belief  relative  to  the  dead,  and  to  the  worship 
that  was  due  them,  founded  the  ancient  family,  and 
gave  it  the  greater  part  of  its  rules.  We  have  seen 
above  that  man,  after  death,  was  reputed  a  happy  and 
divine  being,  but  on  the  condition  that  the  living  con¬ 
tinued  to  offer  him  the  funeral  repasts.  If  these  offer¬ 
ings  ceased,  the  dead  ancestor  fell  to  the  rank  of  an 
unhappy  and  malevolent  demon.  For  when  these 
ancient  generations  began  to  picture  a  future  life  to 
themselves,  they  had  not  dreamed  of  rewards  and  pun¬ 
ishments;  they  imagined  that  the  happiness  of  the 
dead  depended  not  upon  the  life  led  in  this  state  of 
existence,  but  upon  the  way  in  which  their  descendants 
treated  them.  Every  father,  therefore,  expected  of  his 
posterity  that  series  of  funeral  repasts  which  was  to 
assure  to  his  manes  repose  and  happiness. 

This  opinion  was  the  fundamental  principle  of  do¬ 
mestic  law  among  the  ancients.  From  it  followed,  in 
the  first  place,  this  rule,  that  every  family  must  per¬ 
petuate  itself  forever.  It  was  necessary  to  the  dead 
that  the  descendants  should  not  die  out.  In  the  tomb 
where  they  lived  this  was  the  only  inquietude  which 
they  experienced.  Their  only  thought,  their  only  in¬ 
terest,  was,  that  there  should  be  a  man  of  their  blood  to 
carry  them  offerings  at  the  tomb.  The  blind u,  too, 


62 


THE  FAMILY. 


LOOK  II. 


A 


believed  that  the  dead  repeated  continually,  41  May 
there  be  born  in  our  line  sons  who  shall  brine:  us  rice, 
milk,  and  honey.”  The  Hindu  also  had  this  saying: 
“The  extinction  of  a  family  causes  the  ruin  of  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  this  family  ;  the  ancestors,  deprived  of  the  offer¬ 
ing  of  cakes,  fall  into  the  abode  of  the  unhappy.”  1  The 
men  of  Italy  and  Greece  long  held  to  the  same  notions. 
If  they  have  not  left  us  in  their  writings  an  opinion  so 
clearly  expressed  as  in  the  old  books  of  the  East,  their 
laws,  at  least,  remain  to  attest  their  ancient  opinions. 
At  Athens  the  law  made  it  the  duty  of  the  first  magis¬ 
trate  of  the  city  to  see  that  no  family  should  become 
extinct.2  In  the  same  way,  the  Roman  law  made  pro¬ 
vision  that  no  family  should  fail  and  become  extinct.3 
We  read  in  the  discourse  of  an  Athenian  orator, 
“  There  is  no  man  who,  knowing  that  he  must  die,  is 
so  careless  about  himself  as  to  wish  to  leave  his  family 
without  descendants;  for  then  there  would  be  no  one 
to  render  him  that  worship  that  is  due  to  the  dead.”4 
Every  one,  therefore,  had  an  interest  in  leaving  a 
son  after  him,  convinced  that  his  immortal  happiness 
depended  upon  it.  It  was  even  a  duty  towards  those 
ancestors  whose  happiness  could  last  no  longer  than 
the  family  lasted.  The  Laws  of  Manu  call  the  oldest 
son  “  the  one  who  is  begotten  for  the  accomplishment 
of  a  duty.” 

Here  we  touch  upon  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
characteristics  of  the  ancient  family.  The  religion  that 
had  founded  it  required  that  it  should  never  perish. 

When  a  family  becomes  extinct,  a  worship  dies  out. 
We  must  take  these  families  at  a  time  before  the  belief 


1  Bhagavad-Gita,  I.  40. 
s  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  II.  19. 


*  Isæus,  VII.  30-32. 
4  Isæus,  VII.  30. 


CHAP.  III. 


CELIBACY  FORBIDDEN. 


63 


had  yet  been  altered.  Each  one  of  them  possessed  a 
religion  and  gods,  a  precious  trust,  over  which  it  was 
required  to  watch.  The  greatest  misfortune  that  its 
piety  had  to  fear,  was  that  its  line  of  descendants  might 
cease  and  come  to  an  end  ;  for  then  its  religion  would 
disappear  from  the  earth,  its  fire  would  be  extinguished, 
and  the  whole  series  of  its  dead  would  fall  into  obliv¬ 
ion  and  eternal  misery.  The  great  interest  of  human 
life  was  to  continue  the  descent,  in  order  to  continue 
the  worship. 

In  view  of  these  opinions,  celibacy  was  a  grave  im¬ 
piety  and  a  misfortune  ;  an  impiety,  because  one  who 
did  not  marry  put  the  happiness  of  the  manes  of  the 
family  in  peril;  a  misfortune,  because  he  himself  would 
receive  no  worship  after  his  death,  and  could  not  know 
“what  the  manes  enjoyed.”  Both  for  himself  and  for 
his  ancestors  it  was  a  sort  of  damnation. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  in  the  absence  of  laws 
such  a  belief  would  long  be  sufficient  to  prevent  celi¬ 
bacy.  But  it  appears,  moreover,  that,  as  soon  as  there 
were  laws,  they  pronounced  celibacy  to  be  wrong,  and 
a  punishable  offence.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus, 
who  had  searched  the  ancient  annals  of  Rome,  asserts 
that  he  had  seen  an  old  law  which  required  young 
people  to  marry.1  Cicero’s  treatise  on  the  laws  —  a 
treatise  which  almost  always  reproduces,  under  a  philo¬ 
sophic  form,  the  ancient  laws  of  Rome  —  contains  a 
law  which  forbids  celibacy.2  At  Sparta,  the  legislation 
of  Lycurgus  deprived  the  man  who  did  not  marry  of 
all  the  rights  of  citizenship.3  We  know  from  many 
anecdotes,  that  when  celibacy  ceased  to  be  forbidden 

1  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  IX.  22. 

2  Cicero,  De  Legib .,  III.  2. 

3  Plutarch,  Lyeurg .,  Apoth.  of  the  Lacedcemonians. 


o4 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


by  laws,  usage  still  forbade  it.  Finally,  it  appears 
from  a  passage  of  Pollux,  that  in  many  Greek  cities 
the  law  punished  celibacy  as  a  crime.1  This  was  in 
accordance  with  the  ancient  belief  :  man  did  not  belong 
to  himself;  he  belonged  to  the  family.  He  was  one 
member  in  a  series,  and  the  series  must  not  stop  with 
him.  He  was  not  born  by  chance  ;  he  had  been  intro¬ 
duced  into  life  that  be  might  continue  a  worship  ;  he 
must  noi  give  up  life  till  he  is  sure  that  this  worship 
will  be  continued  after  him. 

But  to  beget  a  son  is  not  sufficient.  The  son  who  is 
to  perpetuate  the  domestic  religion  must  be  the  fruit 
of  a  religious  marriage.  The  bastard,  the  natural  son, 
he  whom  the  Greeks  called  iôôoç ,  and  the  Romans 
spurius ,  could  not  perform  the  part  which  religion 
assigned  to  the  son.  In  fact,  the  tie  of  blood  did  not 
of  itself  alone  constitute  the  family  ;  the  tie  of  a  com¬ 
mon  worship  had  to  be  added.  Now,  the  son  born  of 
a  woman  who  had  not  been  associated  in  the  worship 
ol  the  husband  by  the  ceremony  of  marriage  could  not 
himself  take  any  part  in  the  worship.*  He  had  no 
right  to  offer  the  funeral  repast,  and  the  family  was 
not  perpetuated  for  him.  We  shall  see,  farther  on, 
that  for  the  same  reason  he  had  not  the  right  of  in¬ 
heritance. 

Marriage,  then,  was  obligatory.  Its  aim  was  not 
pleasure;  its  principal  object  was  not  the  union  of  two 
beings  who  were  pleased  with  each  other,  and  who 
wished  to  go  united  through  the  pleasures  and  the 
trials  of  life.  The  effect  of  marriage,  in  the  eyes  of 
religion  and  of  the  laws,  was  the  union  of  two  beings 

1  Pollux,  III.  48. 

*  Isæus,  VII.  Demosthenes,  in  Macart. 


CHAP.  III.  DIVORCE  IN  CASE  OF  STERILITY. 


65 


in  the  same  domestic  worship,  in  order  to  produce  from 
them  a  third  who  would  be  qualified  to  continue  the 
worship.  We  see  this  plainly  by  the  sacramental 
formula  that  was  pronounced  in  the  act  of  marriage. 
Ducere  uxorem  liberum  qucerendorum  causa  was  the 
Roman  expression;  tuxIôojp  In'  <xq6toj  yvijolwv  was  the 
Greek.1 

This  marriage  having  been  contracted  only  to  per¬ 
petuate  the  family,  it  seemed  just  that  it  should  be 
broken  if  the  wife  was  sterile.  The  right  of  divorce,  in 
this  case,  always  existed  among  the  ancients;  it  is 
even  possible  that  divorce  was  an  obligation.  In  India 
religion  proscribed  that  the  sterile  woman  should  be  re¬ 
placed  by  another  at  the  end  of  eight  years.2  That  the 
luty  was  the  same  in  Greece  and  Rome,  there  is  no 
formal  text  to  prove.  Still  Herodotus  mentions  two 
kings  of  Sparta  who  were  constrained  to  repudiate 
their  wives  on  account  of  sterility.3  As  to  Rome,  every 
one  knows  the  history  of  Carvilius  Ruga,  whose  divorce 
is  the  first  of  which  the  Roman  annals  make  mention. 
“Carvilius  Ruga,”  says  Aulus  Gellius,  “a  man  of  rank, 
separated  from  his  wife  by  divorce  because  he  could 
not  have  children  by  her.  He  loved  her  tenderly,  and 
had  no  reason  to  complain  of  her  conduct;  but  he  sac¬ 
rificed  his  love  to  the  sanctity  of  his  oath,  because  he 
had  sworn  (in  the  formula  of  marriage)  that  he  took 
her  to  wife  in  order  to  have  children.”4 

Religion  demanded  that  the  family  should  never  be- 

1  Menander,  fr.  185,  ed.  Didot.  Alciphron,  I.  16.  Æsch., 
Agam .,  1166,  ed.  Hermann. 

*  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.  81. 

3  Herodotus,  V.  39;  VI.  61. 

4  Aulus  Gellius,  IV.  3.  Valerius  Maximus,  II.  1,  4.  Dionya., 
II.  25, 


5 


66 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


come  extinct*  all  affection  and  all  natural  right  had 
to  give  way  before  this  absolute  rule.  If  the  sterility 
of  a  marriage  was  due  to  the  husband,  it  was  no  less 
necessary  that  the  family  should  be  continued.  In  that 
case,  a  brother  or  some  other  relative  of  the  husband 
had  to  be  substituted  in  his  place.  The  child  born  of 
such  a  connection  was  held  to  be  the  son  of  the  hus¬ 
band,  and  continued  his  worship.  Such  were  the  rules 
among  the  ancient  Hindus.  We  find  them  again  in 
the  laws  of  Athens,  and  in  those  of  Sparta.1  So  pow¬ 
erful  was  the  empire  of  this  religion  !  So  much  did 
religious  duty  surpass  all  others  ! 

For  a  still  stronger  reason,  ancient  laws  prescribed 
the  marriage  of  the  widow,  when  she  had  had  no  chil¬ 
dren,  with  the  nearest  relative  of  her  husband.  The 
son  born  of  such  a  union  was  reputed  to  be  the  son  of 
the  deceased.2  The  birth  of  a  daughter  did  not  fulfil 
the  object  of  the  marriage;  indeed,  the  daughter  could 
not  continue  the  worship,  for  the  reason  that  on  the 
day  of  her  marriage  she  renounced  the  family  and  wor¬ 
ship  of  her  father,  and  belonged  to  the  family  and 
religion  of  her  husband.  The  family,  like  the  worship, 
was  continued  only  by  the  males  —  a  capital  fact,  the 
consequences  of  which  we  shall  see  farther  on. 

It  was,  therefore,  the  son  who  was  looked  for,  and 
who  was  necessary  ;  he  it  was  whom  the  family,  the 
ancestors,  and  the  sacred  fire  demanded.  “Through 
him,”  according  to  the  old  laws  of  the  Hindus,  “  a  father 
pays  the  debt  due  to  the  manes  of  his  ancestors,  and 
assures  immortality  to  himself.”  This  son  was  not  less 

1  Xenophon,  Gov.  of  the  Laced.  Plutarch,  Solon ,  20.  Laws 
of  Mann ,  IX.  121. 

2  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.  69,  146.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
Hebrews  Deuteron.,  25. 


CHAP.  III.  INEQUALITY  OF  SON  AND  DAUGHTER.  67 


precious  in  the  eyes  of  the  Greeks;  for  Inter  lie  was  to 
perform  the  sacrifices,  offer  the  funeral  repast,  and 
preserve  by  his  worship  the  domestic  religion.  In 
accordance  with  this  idea,  old  Æschylus  calls  the  son 
the  savior  of  the  paternal  hearth.1 

The  entrance  of  this  son  into  the  family  was  signal¬ 
ized  by  a  religious  act.  First,  he  had  to  be  accepted 
by  the  father,  who,  as  master  and  guardian  of  the 
hearth,  and  as  a  representative  of  his  ancestors,  had  to 
decide  whether  the  new  comer  was  or  was  not  of  the 
family.  Birth  formed  only  the  physical  bond  ;  the 
declaration  of  the  father  formed  the  religious  and  moral 
bond.  This  formality  was  equally  obligator)’’  in  Greece, 
in  Rome,  and  in  India. 

A  sort  of  initiation  was  also  required  for  the  son,  as 
we  have  seen  it  was  for  the  daughter.  This  took  place 
a  short  time  after  birth  —  the  ninth  dav  at  Rome,  the 
tenth  in  Greece,  the  tenth  or  twelfth  in  India.2  On 
that  day  the  father  assembled  the  family,  assembled 
witnesses,  and  offered  a  sacrifice  to  his  fire.  The  child 
was  presented  to  the  domestic  gods;  a  female  carried 
him  in  her  arms,  and  ran,  carrying  him,  several  times 
round  the  sacred  fire.3  This  ceremony  had  a  double 
object;  first,  to  purify  the  infant  —  that  is  to  say,  to  free 
him  from  the  stain  which  the  ancients  supposed  he  had 
contracted  by  the  mere  fact  of  gestation  ;  and,  second, 
to  initiate  him  into  the  domestic  worship.  From  this 
moment  the  infant  was  admitted  into  this  sort  of  sacred 
society  or  small  church  that  was  called  the  family.  lie 
possessed  its  religion,  he  practised  its  rites,  he  was 

1  Æscli.,  Clioeph .,  264  (262). 

2  Aristophanes,  Birds,  922.  Demosthenes,  in  Bœot.,  p.  1016, 
Macrobius,  Sat.,  I.  17.  Laws  of  Manu,  II.  30. 

3  Plato,  Thecetetus.  Lysias,  in  Harpocration,  v.  'A/ucpifyop  «. 


68 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


qualified  to  repeat  its  prayers  ;  he  honored  its  ances¬ 
tors,  and  at  a  later  period  he  would  himself  become 
an  honored  ancestor. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Adoption  and  Emancipation. 

The  duty  of  perpetuating  the  domestic  worship 
was  the  foundation  of  the  law  of  adoption  among  the 
ancients.  The  same  religion  which  obliged  a  man  to 
many,  which  pronounced  a  divorce  in  case  of  sterility, 
which,  in  case  of  impotence  or  of  premature  death, 
substituted  a  relative  in  place  of  the  husband,  still 
offered  to  a  family  one  final  resource  to  escape  the  so 
much  dreaded  misfortune  of  extinction;  this  resource 
was  the  right  of  adoption.  “  He  to  whom  nature  has 
denied  a  son  can  adopt  one,  so  that  the  funeral  cere¬ 
monies  may  not  cease.”  Thus  speaks  the  old  legislator 
of  the  Hindus.1  We  have  a  curious  plea  of  an  Athe¬ 
nian  orator  in  a  case  where  the  legitimacy  of  a  son’s 
adoption  was  contested.  The  defendant  shows  us  first 
thé  motive  for  which  one  adopted  a  son.  “Menecles,” 
he  says,  “did  not  wish  to  die  without  children  ;  he  was 
desirous  of  leaving  behind  him  some  one  to  bury  him, 
and  in  after  time  to  perform  the  ceremonies  of  the 
funeral  worship.”  He  then  goes  on  to  show  what  will 
happen  if  the  tribunal  annuls  his  adoption  ;  wThat  will 
happen,  not  only  to  himself,  but  to  the  one  who  has 
adopted  him.  Menecles  is  dead,  and  still  it  is  the  in 
terest  of  Menecles  that  is  at  stake.  “If  you  annul  my 


1  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.  10. 


CHAP.  IV. 


ADOPTION  AND  EMANCIPATION. 


69 


adoption,  you  will  leave  Menecles,  who  is  dead,  with¬ 
out  a  son;  and  consequently  no  one  will  perform  the 
sacrifices  in  his  honor,  no  one  will  offer  him  the  funeral 
repast,  and  thus  he  will  be  without  worship.”  1 

To  adopt  a  son,  was  then,  to  watch  over  the  per¬ 
petuity  of  the  domestic  religion,  the  safety  of  the 
sacred  fire,  the  continuation  of  the  funeral  offerings, 
and  the  repose  of  the  manes  of  the  ancestors.  There 
being  no  reason  for  adoption,  except  the  necessity  of 
preventing  the  extinction  of  a  worship,  it  was  per¬ 
mitted  only  to  one  who  had  no  son.  The  law  of  the 
Hindus  is  formal  on  this  point.2  That  of  the  Athe¬ 
nians  is  not  less  so;  all  the  orations  of  Demosthenes 
against  Leochares  are  proof  of  this.3  No  particular 
passage  proves  that  this  was  the  case  in  the  old  Roman 
law,  and  we  know  that  in  the  time  of  Gains  a  man 
might  have  at  the  same  time  sons  by  nature  and  sons 
by  adoption.  It  appears,  however,  that  this  point  was 
not  admitted  as  legal  in  Cicero’s  time  ;  for  in  one  of 
his  orations  the  orator  expresses  himself  thus:  “What 
is  the  law  concerning  adoption?  Why,  that  he  may 
adopt  children  who  is  no  longer  able  to  have  children 
himself,  and  who  failed  of  having  them  when  he  was 
of  an  age  to  expect  it.  To  adopt  is  to  seek,  by  regular 
and  sacerdotal  law,  that  which  by  the  ordinary  process 
of  nature  he  is  no  longer  able  to  obtain.”  4  Cicero 
attacks  the  adoption  of  Clodius,  taking  the  ground  that 
the  man  who  has  adopted  him  already  has  a  son,  and 

1  Isæus,  II.  10-46. 

2  Laws  of  Manu ,  X.  168,  174.  Dattaca- Sandrica,  Orian* 
ne's  trans.,  p.  260. 

3  See  also  Isæus,  II.  li-14. 

Cicero,  Pro  Domo,  13.  14.  Aulus  Gellius,  V.  19. 


70 


rflE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


he  declares  that  this  adoption  is  contrary  to  sacer¬ 
dotal  law. 

When  a  son  was  adopted,  it  was  necessary,  first  of 
all,  that  he  should  be  initiated  into  a  form  of  worship, 
“introduced  into  a  domestic  religion,  brought  into  the 
presence  of  new  Penates.”  1  Adoption,  therefore,  was 
accompanied  by  a  ceremony  very  like  that  which  took 
place  at  the  birth  of  a  son.  In  this  way  the  new  comer 
was  admitted  to  the  hearth,  and  associated  in  the  new 
religion.  Gods,  sacred  objects,  rites,  prayers,  all  be¬ 
came  common  between  him  and  his  adopted  father* 
They  said  of  him,  In  sacra  transiit — He  lias  passed 
to  the  worship  of  the  new  family.2 

By  this  very  ceremony  he  renounced  the  worship  of 
the  old  one.3  We  have  seen,  indeed,  that  accord¬ 
ing  to  this  ancient  belief,  the  same  man  could  not  sac¬ 
rifice  at  two  hearths,  or  honor  two  series  of  ancestors. 
Admitted  to  a  new  house,  the  old  became  foreimi  to 
him.  He  no  longer  had  anything  in  common  with  the 
hearth  near  which  he  was  born,  and  could  no  longer 
offer  the  funeral  repast  to  his  own  ancestors.  The  ties 
of  birth  were  broken  ;  the  new  tie  of  a  common  worship 
took  the  ascendency.  The  man  became  so  completely 
a  stranger  to  his  own  family,  that,  if  he  happened  to 
die,  his  natural  father  had  no  right  to  take  charge  of 
the  funeral,  or  to  conduct  the  procession.  The  adopted 
son  could  not  return  again  to  the  old  family;  or,  at 
most,  the  law  permitted  this  only  when,  having  a  son, 
he  left  that  son  to  take  his  place  in  the  adoptive  fam¬ 
ily.  They  considered  that,  the  perpetuity  of  this  family 


'  'Ent  r'u  t£(>a  aytir.  Isæus,  VII.  Venire  in  Sacra ,  Cicero. 
Pro  Domo,  It5;  in  Penates  ad sci seer e,  Tacitus,  Hist.,  I.  15. 


1  Valerius  Maximus,  VII.  7. 

Amis  sis  sacris  paternis,  Cicero,  ibid. 


CHAP.  V. 


OF  KINSHIP. 


71 


being  thus  assured,  he  might  leave  it;  but,  in  this 
case,  he  severed  all  the  ties  that  bound  him  to  his 
own  son.1 2 3 

Emancipation  corresponded,  as  a  correlative,  to  adop¬ 
tion.  In  order  that  a  son  might  enter  a  new  family,  it 
was  necessary  that  he  should  be  able  to  leave  the  old  ; 
that  is  to  say,  that  he  should  be  emancipated  from  its 
religion.5  The  principal  effect  of  emancipation  was  the 
renunciation  of  the  worship  of  the  family  in  which  one 
was  born.  The  Romans  designated  this  act  by  the 
very  significant  name  of  sacrorum  detestation 


CHAPTER  V. 

Of  Kinship.  Of  what  the  Romans  called  Agnation. 

Plato  says  that  kinship  is  the  community  of  the 
same  domestic  gods.4  When  Demosthenes  wishes  to 
prove  that  two  men  are  relatives,  he  shows  that  they 
practise  the  same  religious  rites,  and  offer  the  funeral 
repast  at  the  same  tomb.  Indeed,  it  was  the  domestic 
religion  that  constituted  relationship.  Two  men  could 
call  themselves  relatives  when  they  had  the  same  gods, 
the  same  sacred  fire,  and  the  same  funeral  repast. 

Now,  we  have  already  observed  that  the  right  to 

1  Isæus,  VI.  44;  X.  11.  Demosthenes,  against  Leochaies. 
Antiphon.,  Frag.,  15.  Comp.  Laws  of  Manu,  IX.  142. 

2  Consuetudo  apud  antiquos  fuit  ut  qui  in  familiarn  trans¬ 
ir  et  prius  se  abdicaret  ah  ea  in  qua  natus  fuerat.  Servius,  ad 
Æn.,  II.  156. 

3  Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27. 

4  Plato,  Laws,  V.  p.  729. 


72 


TUE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  IT. 


offer  sacrifices  to  the  sacrecl  fire  was  transmitted  only 
from  male  to  male,  and  that  the  worship  of  the  dead 
was  addressed  to  the  ascendants  in  the  male  line  only. 
It  followed  from  this  rule  that  one  could  not  bo  related 
through  females.  In  the  opinion  of  those  ancient  gen¬ 
erations,  a  female  transmitted  neither  being  nor  wor¬ 
ship.  The  son  owed  all  to  the  father.  Besides,  one 
could  not  belong  to  two  families,  or  invoke  two  fires; 
the  son,  therefore,  had  no  other  religion  or  other  family 
than  that  of  the  father.1  How  could  there  have  been  a 
maternal  family?  ITis  mother  herself,  the  day  on  which 
the  sacred  rites  of  marriage  were  performed,  had  abso¬ 
lutely  renounced  her  own  family;  from  that  time  she 
had  offered  the  funeral  repast  to  her  husband’s  ances¬ 
tors,  as  if  she  had  become  their  daughter,  and  she  had 
no  longer  offered  it  to  her  own  ancestors,  because  she 
was  no  longer  considered  as  descended  from  them.  She 
had  preserved  neither  religious  nor  legal  connection 
with  the  family  in  which  she  was  born.  For  a  still 
stronger  reason  her  son  had  nothing  in  common  with 
this  family. 

The  foundation  of  relationship  was  not  birth  ;  it 
was  worship.  This  is  seen  clearly  in  India.  There  the 
chief  of  the  family,  twice  each  month,  offers  the  funeral 
repast;  he  presents  a  cake  to  the  manes  of  his  father, 
another  to  his  paternal  grandfather,  a  third  to  his  great¬ 
grandfather;  never  to  those  from  whom  he  is  descended 
on  the  mother’s  side,  neither  to  his  mother,  nor  to  his 
mother’s  father.  Afterwards,  ascending  still  higher,  but 
always  in  the  same  line,  he  makes  an  offering  to  fourth, 
fifth,  and  sixth  ascendant.  The  offering  to  these  last  is 

1  Pat r is,  non  matris,  familiam  sequitur.  Digest,  50,  tit 
16,  §  196 


oil  AP.  Y. 


OF  ROMAN  AGNATION. 


73 


lighter;  it  Is  a  libation  of  water  and  a  few  grains  of 
rice.  Such  is  the  funeral  repast;  and  it  is  according 
to  the  accomplishment  of  these  rites  that  relationship 
is  reckoned.  When  two  men,  who  olfer  their  funeral 
repasts  separately,  can,  each  one,  by  ascending  through 
a  series  of  six  ancestors,  find  one  who  is  common  to 
both,  they  are  akin.  They  are  called  samanodacas , 
if  the  common  ancestor  is  one  of  those  to  whom  they 
offer  only  the  libation  of  water;  sapindas ,  if  he  is  of 
those  to  whom  the  cake  is  presented.1  Counting  ac¬ 
cording  to  our  usage,  the  relation  of  the  sapindas 
would  go  to  the  seventh  degree,  and  that  of  the  sa - 
manodacas  to  the  fourteenth.  In  both  cases  the  rela¬ 
tionship  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  both  make  an  offer¬ 
ing  to  the  same  ancestor;  and  we  see  that  in  this 
system  the  relationship  through  females  cannot  be 
admitted. 

The  case  was  the  same  in  the  West.  There  has 
been  much  discussion  as  to  what  the  Roman  jurists 
understood  by  agnation.  But  the  problem  is  of  easy 
solution  as  soon  as  we  bring  agnation  and  the  domestic 
religion  together.  Just  as  this  religion  was  transmitted 
only  from  male  to  male,  so  it  is  attested  by  all  the 
ancient  jurists,  that  two  men  can  be  “  agnates  ”  only 
when,  ascending  from  male  to  male,  they  were  found 
to  have  common  ancestors.2  The  rule  for  agnation 
was,  then,  the  same  as  that  for  worship.  There  was 
between  those  two  things  a  manifest  relation.  Agna¬ 
tion  was  nothing  more  than  relationship  such  as  re¬ 
ligion  had  originally  established  it. 

1  Laws  of  Manu ,  V.  60  ;  Mitakchara,  Orianne’s  trails.,  p.  213. 

s  Gaius,  I.  156  ;  111  10.  Ulpian,  26.  Institutes  of  Justinian, 

Hi.  2;  III.  5. 


74 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II 


To  rendei  thi3  truth  clearer,  let  us  trace  the  genea 
logical  table  of  a  Roman  family. 

L.  Cornelius  Scipio,  died  about  250  B.  C. 


Luc.  Scipio  Asiaticus. 


Publius  Scipio.  Cn.  Scipio. 

J _ .  I  v 

P.  Scipio  Africanus.  P.  Scipio  Nasica. 


Luc.  Scipio  Asiaticus.  P.  Scipio.  Cornelia,  P.  Scip.  Nasica. 

I  I  wife  of  Sempr.  Gracchus. 


Scipio  Asiaticus.  Scip.  Æmilianus.  |  Scip.  Serapio. 

Tib.  Sempr.  Gracchus. 


In  this  table,  the  fifth  generation,  which  lived  to¬ 
wards  the  year  140  B.  C.,  is  represented  by  four  per¬ 
sonages.  Were  they  all  akin?  According  to  our 
modern  ideas  on  this  subject,  they  were  ;  in  the  opinion 
of  the  Romans,  all  were  not.  Now,  let  us  inquire  if 
they  all  had  the  same  domestic  worship;  that  is  to 
say,  if  they  all  made  offerings  to  the  same  ancestors. 
Let  us  suppose  the  third  Scipio  Asiaticus,  who  alone 
remains  of  his  branch,  offering  the  funeral  repast  on  a 
particular  day;  ascending  from  male  to  male,  he  finds 
for  the  third  ancestor  Publius  Scipio.  Again,  Scipio 
Æmilianus,  offering  his  sacrifice,  will  meet  in  the  series 
of  his  ascendants  this  same  Publius  Scipio.  Scipio 
Asiaticus  and  Scipio  Æmilianus  are,  therefore,  related  to 
each  other.  Among  the  Hindus  they  would  be  called 
sapindas.  On  the  other  hand,  Scipio  Serapio  has  for 
a  fourth  ancestor  L.  Cornelius  Scipio,  who  is  also  the 
fourth  ancestor  of  Scipio  Æmilianus.  They  are,  there¬ 
fore,  akin.  Among  the  Hindus  they  would  be  called 
samanodacas .  In  the  judicial  and  religious  language 
of  the  Romans,  these  three  Scipios  are  agnates  —  the 
two  first  are  agnates  in  the  sixth  degree,  the  third  is 
their  agnate  in  the  eighth  degree. 

The  case  is  not  the  same  with  Tiberius  Graochus 


CHAP.  Y. 


OF  ROMAN  AGNATION. 


75 


This  man,  who,  according  to  our  modern  customs, 
would  be  nearest  related  to  Scipio  Æmilianus,  was  not 
related  to  him  in  the  remotest  degree.  It  was  of  small 
account,  indeed,  for  Tiberius  that  he  was  the  son  of 
Cornelia,  the  daughter  of  the  Scipios.  Neither  he  nor 
Cornelia  herself  belonged  to  that  family,  in  a  religious 
point  of  view.  He  has  no  other  ancestors  than  the 
Sempronii;  it  is  to  them  that  he  offers  the  funeral  re¬ 
past;  in  ascending  the  series  of  his  ancestors  he  never 
comes  to  a  Scipio.  Scipio  Æmilianus  and  Tiberius 
Gracchus,  therefore,  are  not  agnates.  The  tie  of  blood 
does  not  suffice  to  establish  this  relationship  ;  a  com¬ 
mon  worship  is  necessary. 

We  can  now  understand  why,  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Roman  law,  two  consanguineous  brothers  were  agnates, 
while  two  uterine  brothers  were  not.  Still  we  cannot 
say  that  descent  by  males  was  the  immutable  principle 
on  which  relationship  was  founded.  It  was  not  by 
birth,  it  was  by  worship  alone,  that  the  agnates  were 
recognized.  The  son  whom  emancipation  had  detached 
from  the  worship  was  no  longer  the  agnate  of  his 
father.  The  stranger  who  had  been  adopted,  that  is 
to  say,  who  had  been  admitted  to  the  worship,  became 
the  agnate  of  the  one  adopting  him,  and  even  of  the 
whole  family.  So  true  is  it  that  it  was  religion  that 
established  relationship. 

There  came  a  time,  indeed,  for  India  and  Greece,  as 
well  as  for  Rome,  when  relationship  of  worship  was  no 
longer  the  only  kind  admitted.  By  degrees,  as  this  old 
religion  lost  its  hold,  the  voice  of  blood  spoke  louder,  and 
the  relationship  of  birth  was  recognized  in  law.  The  Ro¬ 
mans  gave  the  name  o Ï  cognatio  to  this  sort  of  relation¬ 
ship,  which  was  absolutely  independent  of  the  rules 
of  the  domestic  religion.  When  we  read  the  jurists 


76 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


from  Cicero  to  Justinian,  we  see  the  two  systems  as 
rivals  ol  each  other,  and  contending  in  the  domain  of 
law.  But  in  the  time  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  agnation 
was  the  only  relationship  known,  and  this  alone  con¬ 
ferred  the  right  of  inheritance.  We  shall  see,  farther 
on,  that  the  case  was  the  same  among  the  Greeks 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Right  of  Property. 

Here  is  an  institution  of  the  ancients  of  which  we 
must  not  form  an  idea  from  anything  that  we  see 
around  us.  The  ancients  founded  the  right  of  property 
on  principles  different  from  those  of  the  present  gen¬ 
eration  ;  as  a  result,  the  laws  by  which  they  guaranteed 
it  are  sensibly  different  from  ours. 

W  e  know  that  there  are  races  who  have  never  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  establishing  among  themselves  the  right  of 
private  property,  while  others  have  reached  this  stage 
only  after  long  and  painful  experience.  It  is  not, 
indeed,  an  easy  problem,  in  the  origin  of  society,  to 
decide  whether  the  individual  may  appropriate  the 
soil,  and  establish  such  a  bond  between  his  being  and 
a  portion  of  the  earth,  that  he  can  say,  This  land  is 
mine,  this  is  the  same  as  a  part  of  me.  The  Tartars 
have  an  idea  of  the  right  of  property  in  a  case  of  flocks 
or  herds,  but  they  cannot  understand  it  when  it  is  a 
question  of  land.  Among  the  ancient  Germans  the 
earth  belonged  to  no  one  ;  every  year  the  tribe  assigned 
to  each  one  of  its  members  a  lot  to  cultivate,  and  the 
lot  was  changed  the  following  year.  The  German  was 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


77 


proprietor  of  the  harvest,  but  not  of  the  land.  The 
case  is  still  the  same  among  a  part  of  the  Semitic  race, 
and  among  some  of  the  Slavic  nations. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  nations  of  Greece  and  Italy, 
from  the  earliest  antiquity,  always  held  to  the  idea  of 
private  property.  We  do  not  find  an  age  when  the 
soil  was  common  among  them;1  nor  do  we  find  any¬ 
thing  that  resembles  the  annual  allotment  of  land  which 
was  in  vogue  among  the  Germans.  And  here  we  note 
a  remarkable  fact.  While  the  races  that  do  not  accord 
to  the  individual  a  property  in  the  soil,  allow  him  at 
least  a  right  to  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  —  that  is  to  say,  to 
his  harvest,  —  precisely  the  contrary  custom  prevailed 
among  the  Greeks.  In  many  cities  the  citizens  were 
required  to  store  their  crops  in  common,  or  at  least  the 
greater  part,  and  to  consume  them  in  common.  The 
individual,  therefore,  was  not  the  master  of  the  corn 
which  he  had  gathered  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  by  a 
singular  contradiction,  he  had  an  absolute  property  in 
the  soil.  To  him  the  land  was  more  than  the  harvest. 
It  appears  that  among  the  Greeks  the  conception  of 
private  property  was  developed  exactly  contrary  to 
what  appears  to  be  the  natural  order.  It  was  not  applied 
to  the  harvest  first,  and  to  the  soil  afterwards,  but  fol¬ 
lowed  the  inverse  order. 

1  Some  historians  have  expressed  the  opinion  that  at  Rome 
property  was  at  first  public,  and  did  not  become  private  till 
Numa’s  reign.  This  error  comes  from  a  false  interpretation  of 
three  passages  of  Plutarch  (Nurna,  16),  Cicero  (Republic,  II.  14), 
and  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (II.  74).  These  three  authors 
6ay,  it  is  true,  that  Numa  distributed  lands  to  the  citizens,  but 
they  indicate  very  clearly  that  these  lands  were  conquests  of  his 
predecessor,  agri  quos  hello  Romulus  ceperat.  As  to  the  Roman 
soil  itself — ager  Romanics  —  it  was  private  property  from  the 
origin  of  the  city. 


78 


TIIK  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


There  are  three  tilings  “which,  from  the  most  ancient 
times,  we  find  founded  and  solidly  established  in  these 
Greek  and  Italian  societies  :  the  domestic  religion  : 
the  family;  and  the  right  of  property  —  three  things 
which  had  in  the  beginning  a  manifest  relation,  and 
which  appear  to  have  been  inseparable.  The  idea  of 
private  property  existed  in  the  religion  itself.  Every 
family  had  its  hearth  and  its  ancestors.  These  gods 
could  be  adored  only  by  this 'family,  and  protected  it 
alone.  They  were  its  property. 

Now,  between  these  gods  and  the  soil,  men  of  the 
early  ages  saw  a  mysterious  relation.  Let  us  first  take 
the  hearth.  This  altar  is  the  symbol  of  a  sedentary 
life  ;  its  name  indicates  this.1  It  must  be  placed  upon 
the  ground;  once  established,  it  cannot  be  moved. 
The  god  of  the  family  wishes  to  have  a  fixed  abode; 
materially,  it  is  difficult  to  transport  the  stone  on 
which  he  shines;  religiously,  this  is  more  difficult  still, 
and  is  permitted  to  a  man  only  when  hard  necessity 
presses  him,  when  an  enemy  is  pursuing  him,  or  when 
the  soil  cannot  support  him.  When  they  establish 
the  hearth,,  it  is  with  the  thought  and  hope  that  it 
will  always  remain  in  the  same  spot.  The  god  is 
installed  there  not  for  a  day,  not  for  the  life  of  one  man 
merely,  but  for  as  long  a  time  as  this  family  shall  en¬ 
dure,  and  there  remains  any  one  to  support  its  fire  by 
sacrifices.  Thus  the  sacred  fire  takes  possession  of  the 
soil,  and  makes  it  its  own.  It  is  the  god’s  property. 

And  the  family,  which  through  duty  and  religion 
remains  grouped  around  its  altar,  is  as  much  fixed  to 
the  soil  as  the  altar  itself.  The  idea  of  domicile  follows 

1  r  Enrla,  lot rtui,  stare.  See  Plutarch,  De  primo  frigido ,  21  ; 
VTacrob.,  I.  23;  Ovid,  Fast.,  VI.  299. 


CHAP.  VI 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


79 


naturally.  The  family  is  attached  to  the  altar,  the 
altar  is  attached  to  the  soil  ;  an  intimate  relation,  there¬ 
fore,  is  established  between  the  soil  and  the  family. 
There  must  be  his  permanent  home,  which  he  will  not 
dream  of  quitting,  unless  an  unforeseen  necessity  con¬ 
strains  him  to  it.  Like  the  hearth,  it  will  always 
occupy  this  spot.  This  spot  belongs  to  it,  is  its  prop¬ 
erty,  the  property  not  simply  of  a  man,  but  of  a  family, 
whose  different  members  must,  one  after  another,  be 
born  and  die  here. 

Let  us  follow  the  idea  of  the  ancients.  Two  sacred 
fires  represent  two  distinct  divinities,  who  are  never 
united  or  confounded  ;  this  is  so  true,  that  even  inter¬ 
marriage  between  two  families  does  not  establish  an 
alliance  between  their  gods.  The  sacred  fire  must  be 
isolated  —  that  is  to  say,  completely  separated  from  all 
that  is  not  of  itself;  the  stranger  must  not  approach 
it  at  the  moment  when  the  ceremonies  of  the  worship 
are  performed,  or  even  be  in  sight  of  it.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  these  gods  are  called  the  concealed  gods, 
fii/ioi,  or  the  interior  gods,  Penates.  In  order  that 
this  religious  rule  may  be  well  observed,  there  must  be 
an  enclosure  around  this  hearth  at  a  certain  distance. 
It  did  not  matter  whether  this  enclosure  was  a  hedge, 
a  wall  of  wood,  or  one  of  stone.  Whatever  it  was,  it 
marked  the  limit  which  separated  the  domain  of  one 
sacred  fire  from  that  of  another.  This  enclosure  was 
deemed  sacred.1  It  was  an  impious  act  to  pass  it. 
The  god  watched  over  it,  and  kept  it  under  his  care. 
They,  therefore,  applied  to  this  god  the  epithet  of 
l çxtîoç.2  This  enclosure,  traced  and  protected  by  re- 

1  "Eqxoç  [tQÔv.  Sophocles,  Trachin .,  606. 

*  At  an  epoch  when  this  ancient  worship  was  almost  effaced 
by  the  younger  religion  of  Zeus,  and  when  they  associated  him 


80 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II, 


iigiou,  was  the  most  certain  emblem,  the  most  un¬ 
doubted  mark  of  the  right  of  property. 

Let  us  return  to  the  primitive  ages  of  the  Aryan 
race.  The  sacred  enclosure,  which  the  Greeks  call 
eçxoç,  and  the  Latins  lierctum ,  was  the  somewhat  spa 
cious  enclosure  in  which  the  family  had  its  house, 
its  flocks,  and  the  small  field  that  it  cultivated.  In 
the  midst  rose  the  protecting  fire-god.  Let  us  descend 
to  the  succeeding  ages.  The  tribes  have  reached 
Greece  and  Italy,  and  have  built  cities.  The  dwellings 
are  brought  nearer  together  :  they  are  not,  however, 
contiguous.  The  sacred  enclosure  still  exists,  but  is 
of  smaller  proportions;  oftqnest  it  is  reduced  to  a  low 
wall,  a  ditch,  a  furrow,  or  to  a  mere  open  space,  a  few 
feet  wide.  But  in  no  case  could  two  houses  be  joined 
to  each  other  ;  a  party  wall  was  supposed  to  be  an  im¬ 
possible  thing.  The  same  wall  could  not  be  common 
to  two  houses;  for  then  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the 
gods  would  have  disappeared.  At  Rome  the  law  fixed 
two  feet  and  a  half  as  the  width  of  the  free  space, 
which  was  always  to  separate  two  houses,  and  this 
space  was  consecrated  to  “  the  god  of  the  enclosure.”  1 

A  result  of  these  old  religious  rules  was,  that  a  com¬ 
munity  of  property  was  never  established  among  the 

with  the  fire-god,  the  new  god  assumed  the  title  of  sqxbioç.  It 
is  not  less  true  that,  in  the  beginning,  the  real  protector  of  the 
enclosure  was  the  domestic  god.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus 
asserts  this  (I.  68),  when  he  says  that  the  ôsul  kqxsioi  are  the 
same  as  the  Penates.  This  follows,  moreover,  from  a  compari¬ 
son  of  a  passage  of  Pausanias  (IY.  17)  with  a  passage  of  Eu¬ 
ripides  (  Troad .,  17),  and  one  of  Virgil  (Æ.,  II.  514)  ;  the  three 
passages  relate  to  the  same  fact,  and  show  that  Zeùç  tQy.uoç  was 
no  other  than  the  domestic  fire. 

1  Festus,  v.  Ambitus.  Yarro,  L.  L .,  Y.  22.  Servius,  ad 
Æ»,  II.  469. 


chap.  va. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


81 


ancients.  A  phalanstery  was  never  known  among 
them.  Even  Pythagoras  did  not  succeed* in  establish¬ 
ing  institutions  which  the  most  intimate  religion  of 
men  resisted.  Neither  do  we  find,  at  any  epoch  in 
the  life  of  the  ancients,  anything  that  resembled  that 
multitude  of  villages  so  general  in  France  during  the 
twelfth  century.  Every  family,  having  its  gods  and 
its  worship,  was  required  to  have  its  particular  place 
on  the  soil,  its  isolated  domicile,  its  property. 

According  to  the  Greeks,  the  sacred  fire  taught  men 
to  build  houses; 1  and,  indeed,  men  who  were  fixed  by 
their  religion  to  one  spot,  which  they  believed  it  their 
duty  not  to  quit,  would  soon  begin  to  think  of  raising 
in  that  place  some  solid  structure.  The  tent  covers 
the  Arab,  the  wagon  the  Tartar;  but  a  family  that  has 
a  domestic  hearth  has  need  of  a  permanent  dwelling. 
The  stone  house  soon  succeeds  the  mud  cabin  or  the 
wooden  hut.  The  family  did  not  build  for  the  life  of  a 
single  man,  but  for  generations  that  were  to  succeed 
each  other  in  the  same  dwelling. 

The  house  was -always  placed  in  the  sacred  en¬ 
closure.  Among  the  Greeks,  the  square  which  com¬ 
posed  the  enclosure  was  divided  into  two  parts  ;  the 
first  part  was  the  court  ;  the  house  occupied  the  sec¬ 
ond.  The  hearth,  placed  near  the  middle  of  the  whole 
enclosure,  was  thus  at  the  bottom  of  the  court,  and 
near  the  entrance  of  the  house.  At  Pome  the  dispo¬ 
sition  was  different,  but  the  principle  was  the  same. 
The  hearth*  remained  in  the  middle  of  the  enclosure, 
but  the  buildings  rose  round  it  on  four  sides,  so  as  to 
enclose  it  within  a  little  court.  • 

We  can  easily  understand  the  idea  that  inspired  this 

1  Diodorus,  V.  68. 

» 

6 


82 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  l! 


system  of  construction.  The  walls  are  raised  aiound 
the  hearth  to  isolate  and  defend  it,  and  we  may  say, 
as  the  Greeks  said,  that  religion  taught  men  to  build 
houses.  In  this  house  the  family  is  mastei  and  pio- 
prietor  ;  its  domestic  divinity  assures  it  this  light. 
The  house  is  consecrated  by  the  perpetual  presence 
of  gods  ;  it  is  a  temple  which  preserves  them. 

“What  is  there  more  holy,”  says  Cicero,  “what  is 
there  more  carefully  fenced  round  with  every  dcsciip- 
tion  of  religious  respect,  than  the  house  ot  each  indi¬ 
vidual  citizen  ?  Here  is  his  altar,  here  is  his  hearth, 
here  are  his  household  gods;  here  all  his  sacred  rights, 
all  his  religious  ceremonies,  are  preserved.”  1  To  enter 
this  house  with  any  malevolent  intention  was  a  sacri¬ 
lege.  The  domicile  was  inviolable.  According  to  a 
Roman  tradition,  the  domestic  god  repulsed  the  robber, 
and  kept  off  the  enemy.2 

Let  us  pass  to  another  object  of  worship  — the  tomb; 
and  we  shall  see  that  the  same  ideas  were  attached  to 
this.  The  tomb  held  a  very  important  place  in  the 
religion  of  the  ancients;  for,  on  one-hand,  worship  was 
due  to  the  ancestors,  and  on  the  other,  the  principal 
ceremony  of  this  worship  —  the  funeral  repast — was  to 
be  performed  on  the  very  spot  where  the  ancestors 
rested.3.  The  family,  therefore,  had  a  common  tomb, 
where  its  members,  one  after  another,  must  come  to 
sleep.  For  i^iis  tomb  the  rule  was  the  same  as  for 
the  hearth.  If-  was  no  more  permitted  to  unite  two 
families  in  the  same  tomb  than  it  was  to  establish  two 
domestic  hearths  in  the  same  house.  To  bury  one  out 

1  Cicero,  Pro  Domo,  41. 

*  Ovid,  Fast.,  V.  141. 

8  Such,  at  least,  was  the  ancient  rule,  since  they  believed  that 
the  funeral  repast  served  as  food  for  the  dead.  Eurip.,  Tioad.% 

381. 


chap.  vi. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


83 


of  the  family  tomb,  or  to  place  a  stranger  in  this  tomb, 
was  equally  impious.1 2  The  domestic  religion,  both 
in  life  and  in  death,  separated  every  family  from  all 
others,  and  strictly  rejected  all  appearance  of  com¬ 
munity.  Just  as  the  houses  could  not  be  contiguous, 
so  the  tombs  could  not  touch  each  other  ;  each  one  of 
them,  like  the  house,  had  a  sort  of  isolating  enclosure. 

How  manifest  is  the  character  of  private  property  in 
all  this  !  The  dead  are  gods,  who  belong  to  a  particular 
family,  which  alone  has  a  right  to  invoke  them.  These 
gods  have  taken  possession  of  the  soil  ;  they  live  under 
this  little  mound,  and  no  one,  except  one  of  the  family, 
can  think  of  meddling  with  them.  Furthermore,  no 
one  has  the  right  to  dispossess  them  of  the  soil  which 
they  occupy;  a  tomb  among  the  ancients  could  never 
be  destroyed  or  displaced  ;  ’  this  was  forbidden  by  the 
severest  laws.  Here,  therefore,  was  a  portion  of  the 
soil  which,  in  the  name  of  religion,  became  an  object 
of  perpetual  property  for  each  family.  The  family  ap¬ 
propriated  to  itself  this  soil  by  placing  its  dead  here; 
it  was  established  here  for  all  time.  The  living  scion 
of  this  family  could  rightly  say,  This  land  is  mine.  It 
was  so  completely  his,  that  it  was  inseparable  from 
him,  and  he  had  not  the  right  to  dispose  of  it.  The 
soil  where  the  dead  rested  was  inalienable  and  impre- 

1  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  11.22;  II.  26.  Gaius,  Instit.,  II.  6. 
Digest ,  XLVII.  tit.  12.  We  must  note  that  the  slave  and  the 
client,  as  we  shall  see,  farther  on  were  a  part  of  the  family,  and 
wore  buried  in  the  common  tomb.  The  rule  which  prescribed 
that  every  man  should  be  buried  in  the  tomb  of  his  family,  ad¬ 
mitted  of  an  exception  in  the  case  where  the  city  itself  granted 
a  public  funeral. 

2  Lycurgus,  against  Leocrates ,  25.  At  Rome,  before  a  burial- 
place  could  be  changed,  the  permission  of  the  pontiffs  was 
required.  Pliny,  Letters ,  X.  73. 


84 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  Ij 


scriptible.  The  Roman  law  required  that,  if  a  family 
sold  the  field  where  the  tomb  was  situated,  it  should  still 
retain  the  ownership  of  this  tomb,  and  should  always 
preserve  the  right  to  cross  the  field,  in  order  to  per¬ 
form  the  ceremonies  of  its  worship.1 

The  ancient  usage  was  to  inter  the  dead,  not  in 
cemeteries  or  by  the  road-side,  but  in  the  field  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  family.  This  custom  of  ancient  limes  is 
attested  by  a  law  of  Solon,  and  by  several  passages  in 
Plutarch!  We  learn  from  an  oration  of  Demosthenes, 
that  even  in  his  time,  each  family  buried  its  dead  in 
its  own  field,  and  that  when  a  domain  was  bought  in 
Attica,  the  burial-place  of  the  old  proprietors  was  found 
there.2  As  for  Italy,  this  same  custom  is  proved  to 
have  existed  by  the  laws  of  the  twelve  Tables,  by 
passages  from  two  jurisconsults,  and  by  this  sentence 
of  Siculus  Flaccus :  “Anciently  there  were  two  ways 
of  placing  the  tomb;  some  placed  it  on  one  side  of  the 
field,  others  towards  the  middle.” 3 

From  this  custom  we  can  see  that  the  idea  of  prop¬ 
erty  was  easily  extended  from  the  small  mound  to  the 
field  that  surrounded  this  mound.  In  the  works  of 
the  elder  Cato  there  is  a  formula  according  to  which  the 
Italian  laborer  prayed  the  manes  to  watch  over  his 
field,  to  take  good  care  against  the  thief,  and  to  bless 
him  with  a  good  harvest.  Thus  these  souls  of  the  dead 
extended  tutelary  action,  and  with  it  their  right  of  prop¬ 
erty,  even  to  the  boundaries  of  the  domain.  Through 

1  Cicero,  De  Legib .,  II.  24.  Digest,  X\  III.  tit.  1.  G. 

2  Laws  of  Solon,  cited  by  Gaius  in  Digest ,  X.  tit.  1.  13.  De¬ 
mosthenes,  against  Callicles.  Plutarch,  Aristides,  1. 

3  Siculus  Flaccus,  edit.  Goez,  p.  4.  See  Fragm.  terminalia , 
edit.  Goez,  p.  147.  Pomponius,  in  Digest ,  XLVII.  tit.  12  6 
Paul,  in  Digest ,  VIII.  1,  14. 


CHAP.  VI. 


TUE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


85 


them  the  family  was  sole  piaster  in  this  field.  The 
tomb  had  established  an  indissoluble  union  of  the  fam¬ 
ily  with  the  land  — that  of  ownership. 

In  the  greater  number  of  primitive  societies  the  right 
of  property  was  established  by  religion.  In  the  Bible, 
the  Lord  said  to  Abraham,  “I  am  the  Lord,  that  brought 
thee  out  of  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  to  give  thee  this  land, 
to  inherit  it;”  and  to  Moses,  “Go  up  hence,  .  .  .  into 
the  land  which  I  sware  unto  Abraham,  to  Isaac,  and 
to  Jacob,  saying,  Unto  thee  will  I  give  it.” 

Thus  God,  the  piimitive  proprietor,  by  right  of  crea¬ 
tion,  delegates  to  man  his  ownership  over  a  part  of  the 
soil.1  There  was  something  analogous  among  the  an¬ 
cient  Græco-Italian  peoples.  It  was  not  the  religion 
of  Jupiter  that  founded  this  right,  it  is  true;  perhaps 
because  this  religion  did  not  yet  exist.  The  gods  who 
conferred  upon  every  family  its  right  to  a  portion  of 
the  soil,  were  the  domestic  gods,  the  sacred  fire,  and  the 
manes.  The  first  religion  that  exercised  its  empire  on 
their  minds  was  also  the  one  that  established  the  right 
of  property  among  them. 

It  is  clearly  evident  that  private  property  was  an  in¬ 
stitution  that  the  domestic  religion  had  need  of.  This 
religion  required  that  both  dwellings  and  burying- 
places  should  be  separate  from  each  other  ;  living  in 
common  was,  therefore,  impossible.  The  same  religion 
required  that  the  hearth  should  be  fixed  to  the  soil, 
that  the  tomb  should  neither  be  destroyed  nor  dis¬ 
placed.  Suppress  the  right  of  property,  and  the  sacred 
fire  would  be  without  a  fixed  place,  the  families  would 

1  Same  traditio  i  among  the  Etruscans  :  “  Quum  Jupiter  ter - 
ram  Etruria,  si'ui  vindicavit ,  constituit  jussitque  metiri  campos 
signarique  agros.”  Auctores  Hei  Agra  via,  in  the  fragment  en¬ 
titled  Idem  Vegoia  Arrunti ,  edit.  Goez. 


86 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  11. 


become  confounded,  and  the  dead  would  bt  abandoned 
and  without  worship.  By  the  stationary  Hearth  and 
the  permanent  burial-place,  the  family  took  possession 
of  the  soil  ;  the  earth  was  in  some  sort  imbued  and  pen¬ 
etrated  by  the  religion  of  the  hearth  and  of  ancestors. 
Thus  the  men  of  the  early  ages  were  saved  the  trouble 
of  resolving  too  difficult  a  problem.  Without  discus¬ 
sion,  without  labor,  without  a  shadow  of  hesitation, 
they  arrived,  at  a  single  step,  and  merely  by  virtue  of 
their  belief,  at  the  conception  of  the  right  of  property} 
this  right  from  which  all  civilization  springs,  since 
by  it  man  improves  the  soil,  and  becomes  improved 
himself. 

Religion,  and  not  laws,  first  guaranteed  the  right  of 
property.  Every  domain  was  under  the  eyes  of  house¬ 
hold  divinities,  who  watched  over  it.1 2  Every  field  had 
to  be;  surrounded,  as  we  have  seen  for  the  house,  by 
an  enclosure,  which  separated  it  completely  from  the 
domains  of  other  families.  This  enclosure  was  not  a 
wall  of  stone;  it  was  a  band  of  soil,  a  few  feet  wide, 
which  remained  uncultivated,  and  which  the  plough 
could  never  touch.  This  space  was  sacred  ;  the  Ro¬ 
man  law  declared  it  indefeasible  ; a  it  belonged  to 
the  religion.  On  certain  appointed  days  of  each 
month  and  year,  the  father  of  the  family  went  round 
his  field,  following  this  line  ;  he  drove  victims  before 
him,  sang  hymns,  and  offered  sacrifices.3  By  this 
ceremony  he  believed  he  had  awakened  the  benevo- 

1  Lares  agri  custodes ,  Tibullus,  I.  1,  23.  Religio  Larum 
posita  in  fundi  villœqve  conspectu .  Cicero,  De  Legib .,  II.  11. 

2  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  I.  21. 

3  Cato,  De  Re  Rust.,  141.  Script.  Rei  Agrar.,  edit.  Goe  s,  p 
308.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  II.  74.  Ovid,  Fast. 1 11.  639 
Strabo,  V.  3. 


CHAP.  VI . 


THE  EIGHT  OF  P  LOPE  ET  Y. 


87 


lence  of  liis  gods  towards  his  field  and  his  house; 
above  all,  lie  had  marked  his  right  of  property  by 
proceeding  round  his  field  with  his  domestic  worship. 
The  path  which  the  victims  and  prayers  had  followed 
was  the  inviolable  limit  of  the  domain. 

On  this  line,  at  certain  points,  the  men  placed  large 
stones  or  trunks  of  trees,  which  they  called  Termini. 
We  can  form  a  good  idea  as  to  what  these  bounds 
were,  and  what  ideas  were  connected  with  them,  by  the 
manner  in  which  the  piety  of  men  established  them. 
“This,”  says  Seculus  Flaccus,  “was  the  manner  in 
which  our  ancestors  proceeded:  They  commenced  by 
digging  a  small  hole,  and  placing  the  Terminus  upright 
near  it;  next  they  crowned  the  Terminus  with  garlands 
of  grasses  and  flowers  ;  then  they  o  fie  red  a  sacrifice. 
The  victim  being  immolated,  they  made  the  blood  flow 
into  the  hole  ;  they  threw  in  live  coals  (kindled,  prob- 
bly,  at  the  sacred  fire  of  the  hearth),  grain,  cakes,  fruits, 
a  little  wine,  and  some  honey.  When  all  this  was 
consumed  in  the  hole,  they  thrust  down  the  stone  or 
piece  of  wood  upon  the  ashes  while  they  were  still 
warm.”  1  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  object  of  the  cere¬ 
mony  was  to  make  of  this  Terminus  a  sort  of  sacred 
representation  of  the  domestic  worship.  To  continue 
this  character  for  it,  they  renewed  the  sacred  act  every 
year,  by  pouring  out  libations  and  reciting  prayers. 
The  Terminus,  once  placed  in  the  earth,  became  in  some 
sort  the  domestic  religion  implanted  in  the  soil,  to  in¬ 
dicate  that  this  soil  wTas  forever  the  property  of  the 
family.  Later,  poetry  lending  its  aid,  the  Terminus 
was  considered  as  a  distinct  god. 

The  employment  of  Termini,  or  sacred  bounds  for 
fields,  appears  to  have  been  universal  among  the  Indo 

Siculus  Flaccus,  edit.  Goez,  p.  5. 


i 


88 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


European  race.  It  existed  among  the  Hindus  at  a  very 
early  date,  and  the  sacred  ceremonies  of  the  boundaries 
had  among'them  a  great  analogy  with  those  which 
Siculus  Flaccus  has  described  for  Italy.1  Before  the 
foundation  of  Rome,  we  find  the  Terminus  among  the 
Sabines;2  we  also  find  it  among  the  Etruscans.  The 
Hellenes,  too,  had  sacred  landmarks,  which  they  called 

JÇXK,  deol  OQIOL ,3 

The  Terminus  once  established  according  to  the  re¬ 
quired  rites,  there  was  no  power  on  earth  that  could 
displace  it.  It  was  to  remain  in  the  same  place  through 
all  ages.  This  religious  principle  was  expressed  at 
Rome  by  a  legend  :  Jupiter,  having  wished  to  prepare 
himself  a  site  on  the  Capitoline  hill  for  a  temple,  could 
not  displace  the  god  Terminus.  This  old  tradition 
shows  how  sacred  property  had  become  ;  for  the  im¬ 
movable  Terminus  signified  nothing  less  than  inviolable 
property. 

In  fact,  the  Terminus  guarded  the  limit  of  the  field, 
and  watched  over  it.  A  neighbor  dared  not  approach 
too  near  it:  “  For  then,”  says  Ovid,  “the  god,  who  felt 
himself  struck  by  the  ploughshare,  or  mattock,  cried, 

‘  Stop  :  this  is  my  field  ;  there  is  yours.’  ” 4  To  encroach 
upon  the  field  of  a  family,  it  was  necessary  to  overturn 
or  displace  a  boundary  mark,  and  this  boundary  mark 
was  a  god.  The  sacrilege  was  horrible,  and  the  chas- 
tisment  severe.  According  to  the  old  Roman  law, 
the  man  and  the  oxen  who  touched  a  Terminus  were 
devoted0  —  that  is  to  say,  both  man  and  oxen  were 

1  Laws  of  Manu,  VIII.  245.  Vrihaspati,  cited  by  Sicé,  Hindu 
Legislation ,  p.  159. 

2  Yarro,  L.  L.,  Y.  74. 

2  Pollux,  IX.  9.  Hesythius,  oqoç.  Plato,  Laws ,  p.  842. 

4  Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  677. 

*  Festus,  v.  Terminus. 


Cil  A.F.  YI. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


89 


immolated  in  expiation.  The  Etruscan  law,  speaking 
in  the  name  of  religion,  says,  “He  who  shall  have 
touched  or  displaced  a  bound  shall  be  condemned  by 
the  gods;  his  house  shall  disappear;  his  race  shall  be 
extinguished  ;  his  land  shall  no  longer  produce  fruits  ; 
hail,  rust,  and  the  fires  of  the  dog-star  shall  destroy  his 
harvests;  the  limbs  of  the  guilty  one  shall  become 
covered  with  ulcers,  and  shall  waste  away.”  1  We  do 
not  possess  the  text  of  the  Athenian  law  on  this  sub¬ 
ject;  there  remain  of  it  only  three  words,  which  signify, 
“Do  not  pass  the  boundaries.”  But  Plato  appears  to 
complete  the  thought  of  the  legislator  when  he  says, 
“Our  first  law  ought  to  be  this:  Let  no  person  touch 
the  bounds  which  separate  his  field  from  that  of  his 
neighbor,  for  this  ought  to  remain  immovable.  .  .  . 
Let  no  one  attempt  to  disturb  the  small  stone  which 
separates  friendship  from  enmity,  and  which  the  land- 
owners  have  bound  themselves  by  an  oath  to  leave  in 
its  place.”  " 

From  all  these  beliefs,  from  all  these  usages,  from  all 
these  laws,  it  clearly  follows  that  the  domestic  religion 
taught  man  to  appropriate  the  soil,  and  assured  him 
his  right  to  it. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  that  the  right 
of  property,  having  been  thus  conceived  and  established, 
was  much  more  complete  and  absolute  in  its  effects 
than  it  can  be  in  our  modern  societies,  where  it  is 
founded  upon  otlu  principles.  Property  was  so  in¬ 
herent  in  the  domestic  religion  that  a  family  could 
not  renounce  one  without  renouncing  the  other.  The 
house  and  the  field  were  —  so  to  speak  —  incorporated 

1  Script.  Rei  Agrar.,  ed.  Goez,  p.  258. 

*  Plat  >,  Laws,  VIII.  p.  S42. 


90 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  11. 


in  it,  and  it  could  neither  lose  them  nor  dispose  of  them. 
Plato,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Laws,  did  not  pretend  to 
advance  a  new  idea  when  he  forbade  the  proprietor  to 
sell  his  field  ;  he  did  no  more  than  to  recall  an  old  law. 
Everything  leads  us  to  believe  that  in  the  ancient  ages 
property  was  inalienable.  It  is  well  known  that  at 
Sparta  the  citizen  was  formally  forbidden  to  sell  his  lot 
of  land.1  There  was  the  same  interdiction  in  the  laws 
of  Locri  and  of  Leucadia.2  Pheidon  of  Corinth,  a  legis¬ 
lator  of  the  ninth  century  B.  C.,  prescribed  that  the 
number  of  families  and  of  estates  should  remain  un¬ 
changeable.3  Now,  this  prescription  could  be  observed 
only  when  it  was  forbidden  to  sell  an  estate,  or  even  to 
divide  it. 

The  law  of  Solon,  later  by  seven  or  eight  generations 
than  that  of  Pheidon  of  Corinth,  no  longer  forbade  a 
man  to  sell  his  land,  but  punished  the  vender  by  a 
severe  fine,  and  the  loss  of  the  rights  of  citizenship.4 
Finally,  Aristotle  mentions,  in  a  general  manner,  that 
in  many  cities  the  ancient  laws  lorbade  the  sale  of 
land.5 

Such  laws  ought  not  to  surprise  us.  Found  prop¬ 
erty  on  the  right  of  labor,  and  man  may  dispose  of  it. 
Found  it  on  religion,  and  he  can  no  longer  do  this  ;  a 
tie  stronger  than  the  will  of  man  binds  the  land  to  him. 
Besides,  this  field  where  the  tomb  is  situated,  where  the 
divine  ancestors  live,  where  the  family  is  forever  to 
perform  its  worship,  is  not  simply  the  property  of  a 
man,  but  of  a  family.  It  is  not  the  individual  actually 

1  Plutarch,  Lycurg Agis.  Aristotle,  Polit.,  II.  6,  10  (II.  7). 

2  Aristotle,  Polit.,  II.  4.  4  (II.  5). 

3  Id.,  Ibid.,  II.  3,  7. 

4  Æschines,  against  Timarchus.  Diogenes  Laertius,  I.  55. 

6  Aristotle,  Polit VII.  2. 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY. 


91 


living  who  has  established  his  right  over  this  soil,  it  is 
the  domestic  god.  The  individual  has  it  in  trust  only; 
it  belongs  to  those  who  are  dead,  and  to  those  who  are 
yet  to  be  born.  It  is  a  part  of  the  body  of  this  family, 
and  cannot  be  separated  from  it.  To  detach  one  from 
the  other  is  to  alter  a  worship,  and  to  offend  a  religion. 
Among  the  Hindus,  property,  also  founded  upon  re¬ 
ligion,  was  also  inalienable.1 2 

We  know  nothing  of  Roman  law  previous  to  the 
laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables.  It  is  certain  that  at  that 
time  the  sale  of  property  was  permitted  ;  but  there  are 
reasons  for  thinking  that,  in  the  earlier  days  of  Rome, 
and  in  Italy  before  the  existence  of  Rome,  land  was 
inalienable,  as  in  Greece.  Though  there  remains  no 
evidence  of  this  old  law,  there  remain  to  us  at  least 
the  modifications  which  were  made  in  it  by  degrees. 
The  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  though  attaching  to  the 
tomb  the  character  of  inalienability,  has  freed  the  soil 
from  it.  Afterwards  it  was  permitted  to  divide  prop¬ 
erty,  if  there  were  several  brothers,  but  on  condition 
that  a  new  religious  ceremony  should  be  performed, 
and  that  the  new  partition  should  be  made  by  a  priest  ; 3 
religion  only  could  divide  what  had  before  been  pro¬ 
claimed  indivisible.  Finally,  it  was  permitted  to  sell 
the  domain;  but  for  that  formalities  of  a  religious  char¬ 
acter  were  also  necessary.  This  sale  could  take  place 
only  in  the  presence  of  a  priest,  whom  they  called 
libnpens ,  and  with  the  sacred  formality  which  they 
called  mancipation.  Something  analogous  is  seen  in 
Greece;  the  sale  of  a  house  or  of  land  was  always  ac- 

1  Mitakchara ,  Orianne’s  trans.,  p.  50.  This  rule  disappeared 
by  degrees  after  Brahminism  became  dominant. 

2  This  priest  was  called  agrimensor.  See  Scriptores  Rei 

A  g  ranee. 


02 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


companies!  with  a  sacrifice  to  the  gods.1  Every  trans¬ 
fer  of  property  needed  to  be  authorized  by  religion.  If 
a  man  could  not,  or  could  only  with  difficulty,  dispose 
of  land,  for  a  still  stronger  reason  he  could  not  be 
deprived  of  it  against  his  will. 

The  appropriation  of  land  for  public  utility  was  un¬ 
known  among  the  ancients.  Confiscation  was  resorted 
to  only  in  case  of  condemnation  to  exile  2  —  that  is  to 
say,  when  a  man,  deprived  of  his  right  to  citizenship, 
could  no  longer  exercise  any  right  over  the  soil  of  the 
city.  Nor  was  the  taking  of  property  for  debt  known 
in  the  ancient  laws  of  cities.3  The  laws  of  the  Twelve 
Tables  assuredly  do  not  spare  the  debtor;  still  they  do 
not  permit  his  property  to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  the 
creditor.  The  body  of  the  debtor  is  held  for  the  debt, 
not  his  land,  for  the  land  is  inseparable  from  the  family. 
It  is  easier  to  subject  a  man  to  servitude  than  to  take 
his  property  from  him.  The  debtor  is  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  creditor  ;  his  land  follows  him,  in  some 
sort,  into  slavery.  The  master  who  uses  the  physical 
strength  of  a  man  for  his  own  profit,  enjoys  at  the  same 
time  the  fruits  of  his  land,  but  does  not  become  the 
proprietor  of  it.  So  inviolable  above  all  else  is  the 
right  of  property.4 

1  Stobæus,  42. 

2  This  rule  disappeared  in  the  democratic  age  of  the  cities. 

3  A  law  of  the  Elæans  forbade  the  mortgaging  of  land.  Aris- 
tot.,  Polit.,  VII.  2.  Mortgages  were  unknown  in  ancient  Roman 
law.  What  is  said  of  mortgages  in  the  Athenian  law  before 
Solon  is  based  on  a  doubtful  passage  of  Plutarch. 

4  In  the  article  of  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  which  relates 
to  insolvent  debtors,  we  read,  Si  void  suo  viviio  ;  then  the  debtor, 
having  become  almost  a  slave,  still  retains  something  for  him¬ 
self;  his  land,  if  lie  has  any,  is  not  taken  from  him.  The 
arrangements  known  in  Roman  law  under  the  names  of  fidu - 


CHAP.  VH 


THE  RIGHT  OP  SUCCESSION. 


93 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Right  of  Succession. 

1.  Nature  and  Principle  of  the  Right  of  Succession 

among  the  Ancients . 

The  right  of  property  having  been  established  for 
the  accomplishment  of  an  hereditary  worship,  it  was  not 
possible  that  this  right  should  fail  after  the  short  life  of 
an  individual.  The  man  dies,  the  worship  remains; 
the  fire  must  not  be  extinguished,  nor  the  tomb  aban¬ 
doned.  So  long  as  the  domestic  religion  continued, 
the  right  of  property  had  to  continue  with  it. 

Two  things  are  closely  allied  in  the  creeds  as  well 
as  in  the  laws  of  the  ancients  —  the  family  worship 
and  its  property.  It  was  therefore  a  rule  without 
exception,  in  both  Greek  and  Roman  law,  that  a  prop¬ 
erty  could  not  be  acquired  without  the  worship,  or  the 
worship  without  the  property.  “Religion  prescribes,” 
says  Cicero,  “that  the  property  and  the  worship  of  a 

ciary  mancipation ,  and  of  pignvs ,  were,  before  the  introduction 
of  the  Servian  action,  the  means  employed  to  insure  to  the  cred¬ 
itor  the  payment  of  the  debt;  these  prove  indirectly  that  the 
seizure  of  property  for  debt  was  not  practised.  Later,  when 
they  suppressed  corporal  servitude,  it  was  necessary  that  there 
should  be  some  claim  on  the  property  of  a  debtor.  The 
change  was  not  without  difficulty;  but  the  distinction  which  was 
made  between  property  and  possession  offered  a  resource.  The 
creditor  obtained  of  the  praetor  the  right  to  sell,  not  the  prop¬ 
erty,  dominium ,  but  the  goods  of  the  debtor,  bona.  Then  only, 
by  a  disguised  seizure,  the  debtor  lost  the  enjoyment  of  hia 
property. 


94 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


family  shall  be  inseparable,  and  that  the  care  of  the 
sacrifices  shall  always  devolve  upon  the  one  who  re¬ 
ceives  the  inheritance.”  1  At  Athens  an  orator  claims 
a  succession  in  these  terms:  “Weigh  it  well,  O  judges, 
and  say  whether  my  adversary  or  I  ought  to  inherit  the 
estate  of  Fhiloctemon,  and  offer  the  sacrifices  upon  his 
tomb.”  2  Could  one  say  more  directly  that  the  care  of 
the  worship  was  inseparable  from  the  succession  ?  It 
was  the  same  in  India:  “He  who  inherits,  whoever  he 
may  be,  is  bound  to  make  the  offerings  upon  the  tomb.”  3 4 
From  this  principle  were  derived  all  the  rules  regard¬ 
ing  the  right  of  succession  among  the  ancients.  The 
first  is  that,  the  domestic  religion  being,  as  we  have 
seen,  hereditary  from  male  to  male,  property  is  the 
same.  As  the  son  is  the  natural  continuator  of  the  re¬ 
ligion,  he  also  inherits  the  estate.  Thus  the  rule  of 
inheritance  is  found  ;  it  is  not  the  result  of  a  simple 
agreement  made  between  men;  it  is  derived  from  their 
belief  from  their  religion,  from  that  which  has  the 
greatest  power  over  their  minds.  It  is  not  the  personal 
will  of  the  father  that  causes  the  son  to  inherit.  The 
father  need  not  make  a  will;  the  son  inherits  of  full 
right, — ipso  jure  her  es  exsis  tit, — says  the  jurisconsult. 
He  is  even  a  necessary  successor  —  heres  necessarius  .A 
He  has  neither  to  accept  nor  to  reject  the  inheritance. 
The  continuation  of  the  property,  like  that  of  the 
worship,  is  for  him  an  obligation  as  well  as  a  right. 
Whether  he  wishes  it  or  not,  the  inheritance  falls  to 
him,  whatever  it  may  be,  even  witli  its  encumbrances 

1  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  IL  19,  20.  Festus,  v.  Everriator. 

2  Isæus,  VI.  51.  Plato  calls  the  heir  ôtuôoj^oç  ôerôv.  Laws, 
V.  740. 

3  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.  186. 

4  Digest ,  XXXVIII.  tit.  16,  14. 


CHAP.  VII. 


TIIK  RIGHT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


95 


and  its  debts.  The  right  to  inherit  without  the  debts, 
and  to  reject  an  inheritance,  was  not  allowed  to  the 
son  in  Greek  legislation,  and  was  not  introduced  until 
a  later  period  into  Roman  law. 

The  judicial  language  of  Rome  calls  the  son  heres 

suus,  as  if  one  should  say,  heres  sui  ipsius.  In  fact, 

he  inherits  only  of  himself.  Between  his  father  and 

* 

him  there  is  neither  donation,  nor  legacy,  nor  change 
of  property.  There  is  simply  a  continuation — morte 
parentis  continuatur  dominium .  Already,  during 
the  life  of  the  father,  the  son  was  co-proprietor  of  the 
field  and  house  — vivo  quoque  pâtre  dominas  existi- 
matur 

To  form  an  idea  of  inheritance  among  the  ancients, 
we  must  not  figure  to  ourselves  a  fortune  which  passes 
from  the  hands  of  one  to  those  of  another.  The  for¬ 
tune  is  immovable,  like  the  hearth,  and  the  tomb  to 
which  it  is  attached.  It  is  the  man  who  passes  away. 
It  is  the  man  who,  as  the  family  unrolls  its  generations, 
arrives  at  his  hour  appointed  to  continue  the  worship, 
and  to  take  care  of  the  domain. 

2.  The  Son ,  not  the  Daughter,  inherits. 

It  is  here  that  ancient  laws,  at  first  sight,  appear 
whimsical  and  unjust.  We  experience  some  surprise 
when  we  see  in  the  Roman  law  that  the  daughter  does 
not  inherit  if  she  is  married,  and  that,  according  to  the 
Greek  law,  she  does  not  inherit  in  any  case.  What 
concerns  the  collateral  brandies  appears,  at  first  sight, 
still  farther  removed  from  nature  and  justice.  This  is 
because  all  these  laws  flow,  according  to  a  very  rigor* 


1  Institutes,  III.  1,  3;  III.  9,  7  ;  III.  19,  2. 


96 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  IL 


ous  logic,  from  the  creed  and  religion  that  we  have 

described  above. 

The  rule  for  the  worship  is,  that  it  shall  be  trans- 
mitted  from  male  to  male;  the  rule  for  the  inheritance 
is,  that  it  shall  follow  the  worship.  The  daughter  is 
not  qualified  to  continue  the  paternal  religion,  since 
she  may  marry,  and  thus  renounce  the  religion  of  her 
father  to  adopt  that  of  her  husband  ;  she  has,  there¬ 
fore,  no  right  to  the  inheritance.  If  a  father  should 
happen  to  leave  his  property  to  a  daughter,  this  prop¬ 
erty  would  be  separated  from  the  worship,  which  would 
be  inadmissible.  The  daughter  could  not  even  fulfil 
the  first  duty  of  an  heir,  which  was  to  continue  the 
series  of  funeral  repasts;  since  she  would  offer  the 
sacrifices  to  the  ancestors  of  her  husband.  Religion 
forbade  her,  therefore,  to  inherit  from  her  father. 

Such  is  the  ancient  principle  ;  it  influenced  equally 
the  legislators  of  the  Hindus  and  those  of  Greece  and 
Rome.  The  three  peoples  had  the  same  laws  ;  not 
that  they  had  borrowed  from  each  other,  but  because 
they  had  derived  their  laws  from  the  same  belief. 

“  After  the  death  of  the  father,”  says  the  Code  of 
Mann,  “let  the  brothers  divide  the  patrimony  among 
them;”  and  the  legislator  adds,  that  he  recommends 
the  brothers  to  endow  their  sisters,  which  proves  that 
the  latter  have  not  of  themselves  any  right  to  the 
paternal  succession. 

This  was  the  case,  too,  at  Athens.  Demosthenes,  in 
his  orations,  often  has  occasion  to  show  that  daughters 
cannot  inherit.1  He  is  himself  an  example  of  the 
application  of  this  rule;  for  he  had  a  sister,  and  we 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Bœotum.  Isæus,  X.  4.  Lysias,  in  M%n 

ttth.y  10. 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  RKjrHT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


97 


know,  from  his  own  writings,  that  he  was  the  sole  heii 
to  the  estate  ;  his  father  had  reserved  only  the  seventh 
part  to  endow  the  daughter. 

As  to  Rome,  the  provisions  of  primitive  law  which 
excluded  the  daughters  from  the  inheritance  are  not 
known  to  us  from  any  formal  and  precise  text  ;  but 
they  have  left  profound  traces  in  the  laws  of  later  ages. 
The  Institutes  of  Justinian  still  excluded  the  daughter 
from  the  number  of  natural  heirs,  if  she  was  no  longer 
under  the  power  of  the  father;  and  she  was  no  longer 
under  the  power  of  the  father  after  she  had  been  mar¬ 
ried  according  to  the  religious  rites.1  From  this  it 
follows  that,  if  the  daughter  before  marriage  could 
share  the  inheritance  with  her  brother,  she  had  not 
this  right  after  marriage  had  attached  her  to  another 
religion  and  another  family.  And,  if  this  was  still  the 
case  in  the  time  of  Justinian,  we  may  suppose  that  in 
primitive  law,  this  principle  was  applied  in  all  its  rigor, 
and  that  the  daughter  not  yet  married,  but  who  would 
one  day  marry,  had  no  right  to  inherit  the  estate. 
The  Institutes  also  mention  the  old  principle,  then 
obsolete,  but  not  forgotten,  which  prescribed  that  an 
inheritance  always  descended  to  the  males.2  It  was 
clearly  as  a  vestige  of  this  old  rule,  that,  according 
to  the  civil  law,  a  woman  could  never  be  constituted  au 
heiress.  The  farther  we  ascend  from  the  Institutes  of 
Justinian  towards  earlier  times,  the  nearer  we  approach 
the  rule  that  woman  could  not  inherit.  In  Cicero’s 
time,  if  a  father  left  a  son  and  a  daughter,  he  could  will 
to  his  daughter  only  one  third  of  his  fortune  ;  if  there 
was  only  a  daughter,  she  could  still  have  but  half. 
We  must  also  note  that,  to  enable  this  daughter  to 

1  Institutes,  II.  9,  2.  *  Ibid.,  III.  1,  15;  III.  2,  3. 

7 


98 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  IT. 


receive  a  third  or  half  of  this  patrimony,  it  was  necessary 
that  the  father  should  make  a  will  in  her  favor  ;  the 
daughter  had  nothing  of  full  right.1  k  inally,  a  century 
and  a  half  before  Cicero,  Cato,  wishing  to  revive  an¬ 
cient  manners,  proposed  and  carried  the  Yoconian 
law,  which  forbade,  — 1.  Making  a  woman  an  heiress, 
even  if  she  was  an  only  child,  married  or  unmairied. 
2.  The  willing  to  a  woman  of  more  than  a  fourth  part 
of  the  patrimony.2  The  Yoconian  law  merely  renewed 
laws  of  an  earlier  date  ;  lor  we  cannot  suppose  it  would 
have  been  accepted  by  the  contemporaries  of  the  Scipios 
if  it  had  not  been  supported  upon  old  principles  which 
they  still  respected.  It  re-established  what  time  had 
changed.  Let  us  add  that  it  contained  nothing  regard¬ 
ing  heirship,  ab  intestat ,  probably  because  on  this  point 
the  old  law  was  still  in  force,  and  there  was  nothing 
to  repair  on  the  subject.  At  Rome,  as  in  Greece,  the 
primitive  law  excluded  the  daughter  from  the  hciitage  , 
and  this  was  only  a  natural  and  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  principles  which  religion  had  established. 

It  is  true  men  soon  found  out  a  way  of  reconciling 
the  religious  prescription  which  forbade  the  daughter 
to  inherit  with  the  natural  sentiment  which  would  have 
her  enjoy  the  fortune  of  her  father.  The  law  decided 
that  the  daughter  should  marry  the  heir. 

Athenian  legislation  carried  this  principle  to  its  ulti¬ 
mate  consequences.  If  the  deceased  left  a  son  and 
a  daughter,  the  son  alone  inherited  and  endowed  his 
sister;  if  they  were  not  both  children  of  uie  same 
mother,  he  had  his  choice  to  marry  her  or  to  endow 


1  Cicero,  De  Rep.,  III.  7. 

2  Cicero,  in  VerT.,  I.  42.  Livy,  XLI.  4.  St.  Augustin©, 

City  of  God ,  III.  21. 


CHAP.  VII. 


TJE  RIGHT  OP  SUCCESSION. 


99 


her.1  If  the  deceased  left  only  a  daughter,  his  nearest 
of  kind  was  his  heir;  but  this  relative,  who  was  of 
course  also  a  near  relative  of  the  daughter,  was  required, 
nevertheless,  to  many  her.  More  than  this,  if  this 
daughter  was  already  married,  she  was  required  to 
abandon  her  husband  in  order  to  marry  her  father’s 
heir.  The  heir  himself  might  be  already  married  ;  in 
this  case,  he  obtained  a  divorce,  in  order  to  marry  his 
relative.2  We  see  here  how  completely  ancient  law 
ignored  nature  to  conform  to  religion. 

The  necessity  of  satisfying  the  requirements  of  re¬ 
ligion,  combined  with  the  desire  of  saving  the  interests 
of  an  only  daughter,  gave  rise  to  another  subterfuge. 
On  this  point  Hindu  law  and  Athenian  law  corre¬ 
spond  marvellously.  We  read  in  the  Laws  of  Manu, 
“He  who  has  no  male  child  may  require  his  daughter 
to  give  him  a  son,  who  shall  become  his,  and  who  may 
perform  the  funeral  ceremonies  in  his  honor.”  In  this 
case  the  father  was  required  to  admonish  the  husband 
to  whom  he  gave  his  daughter,  by  pronouncing  this 
formula:  “I  give  you  this  daughter,  adorned  with  jew¬ 
els,  who  has  no  brother;  the  son  born  of  her  shall  be 
my  son,  and  shall  celebrate  my  obsequies.” 3  The  cus¬ 
tom  was  the  same  at  Athens;  the  father  could  continue 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Euliil.,  21.  Plutarch,  Themist.^  32.  Isæus, 
X.  4.  Corn.  Nepos,  Cimon.  It  must  be  noted  that  the  law  did 
not  permit  marrying  a  uterine  brother,  or  an  emancipated 
brother;  it  could  be  only  a  brother  by  the  father’s  side,  because 
the  latter  alone  could  inherit  of  the  father. 

2  Isæus,  III.  64;  X.  5.  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul.,  41.  The 
only  daughter  was  called  inixktjQoç,  wrongly  translated  heiress  ; 
it  signifies  the  daughter  who  goes  with  the  inheritance.  In  fact, 
the  daughter  was  never  an  heiress. 

3  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.- 127,  136.  Vasishta,  XVII.  16. 


100 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


his  descent  through  his  daughter,  by  giving  her  a  hus¬ 
band  on  this  special  condition.  The  son  who  was  born 
of  such  a  union  was  reputed  the  son  of  the  wife’s 
father;  followed  his  worship  ;  assisted  at  his  religious 
ceremonies;  and,  later,  guarded  his  tomb.1 2  In  Hindu 
law  this  child  inherited  from  his  grandfather,  as  if  he 
had  been  his  son  ;  it  was  exactly  the  same  at  Athens. 
When  the  father  had  married  his  daughter  in  the 
manner  we  have  described,  his  heir  wras  neither  his 
daughter  nor  his  son-in-law  ;  it  was  the  daughter  s 
son?  As  soon  as  the  latter  had  attained  his  ma¬ 
jority,  he  took  possession  of  the  patrimony  of  his  mater- 
71  al  grandfather,  though  his  father  and  mother  were 
still  living.3 

This  singular  tolerance  of  religion  and  law  confirms 
the  rule  which  we  have  already  pointed  out.  The 
daughter  was  not  qualified  to  inherit;  but,  by  a  very 
natural  softening  of  the  rigor  of  this  principle,  the  only 
daughter  was  considered  as  an  intermediary  by  whom 
the  family  might  be  continued.  She  did  not  inherit  ; 
but  the  worship  and  the  inheritance  were  transmitted 
through  her. 


3.  Of  the  Collateral  Succession. 

A  man  died  without  children  ;  to  know  who  the  heir 
of  his  estate  was,  we  have  only  to  learn  who  was  qual¬ 
ified  to  continue  his  worship. 

Now,  the  domestic  religion  was  transmitted  by  blood 
from  male  to  male.  The  descent  in  the  male  line  alone 

1  Isæus,  VII. 

2  He  was  not  called  the  grandson  ;  they  gave  him  tne  par¬ 
ticular  name  of  èvyaxQiSovç. 

3  Dæus,  VIII.  31;  X.  12.  Demosthenes,  in  Steph .,  II.  20. 


CHAP.  YU. 


THE  KIGIIT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


101 


establisnod  oetween  two  men  the  religious  relation 
which  permitted  one  to  continue  the  worship  of  the 
other.  What  is  called  relationship,  as  we  have  seen 
above,  was  nothing  more  than  the  expression  of  this 
relation.  One  was  a  relative  because  he  had  the  same 
worship,  the  same  original  sacred  fire,  the  same  ances¬ 
tors.  But  one  was  not  a  relative  because  he  had  the 
same  mother;  religion  did  not  admit  of  kinship  through 
women.  The  children  of  two  sisters,  or  of  a  sister  and 
a  brother,  had  no  bond  of  kinship  between  them,  and 
belonged  neither  to  the  same  domestic  religion  nor  to 
the  same  family. 

Th  ese  principles  regulated  the  order  of  succession. 
If  a  man,  having  lost  his  son  and  his  daughter,  left  only 
grandchildren  after  him,  his  son’s  sou  inherited,  but  not 
his  daughter’s  son.  In  default  of  descendants,  he  had 
as  an  heir  his  brother,  not  his  sister,  the  son  of  his 
brother,  not  the  son  of  his  sister.  In  default  of  brothers 
and  nephews,  it  was  necessary  to  go  up  in  the  series 
of  ascendants  of  the  deceased,  always  in  the  male  line, 
until  a  branch  of  the  family  was  found  that  was  de¬ 
tached  through  a  male  ;  then  to  re-descend  in  this 
branch  from  male  to  male,  until  a  living  man  was  found  ; 
this  was  the  heir. 

These  rules  were  in  force  equally  among  the  Hindus, 
the  Greeks,  and  the  Romans.  In  India  “the  inherit¬ 
ance  belongs  to  the  nearest  sapinda;  in  default  of  a 
sapinda,  to  the  samanodaca.”  1  Now,  we  have  seen 
that  the  relationship  which  these  two  words  expressed 
was  the  religious  relationship,  or  the  relationship 
through  the  males,  and  corresponded  to  the  Roman 
agnation. 

Here,  again,  is  the  law  of  Athens:  “If  a  man  dies 
1  Laws  of  Manu,  IX.  186,  187. 


102 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II 


without  children,  the  heir  is  the  brother  of  the  deceased, 
provided  he  is  a  consanguineous  brother;  in  default  of 
him,  the  son  of  the  brother;  for  the  succession  always 
passes  to  the  males ,  and  to  the  descendants  of  males” 1 
They  still  cited  this  old  law  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes, 
although  it  had  already  been  modified,  and  they  had 
commenced  at  this  epoch  to  admit  relationship  through 
women. 

In  the  same  way,  the  Twelve  Tables  ordained  that, 
if  a  man  died  without  his  heir ,  the  succession  belonged 
to  the  nearest  agnate.  Now,  we  have  seen  that  one 
was  never  an  agnate  through  females.  The  ancient 
Roman  law  also  specified  that  the  nephew  inherited 
from  the  patruus , —  that  is  to  say,  from  his  father’s 
brother,  —  and  did  not  inherit  from  the  avunculus , 
his  mother’s  brother.2 

By  returning  to  the  table  which  we  have  traced  of 
the  family  of  the  Scipios,  it  will  be  seen  that,  Scipio 
Æmilianus,  having  died  without  children,  his  estate 
could  not  pass  either  to  Cornelia,  his  aunt,  or  to  C. 
Gracchus,  who,  according  to  our  modern  ideas,  was  his 
cousin-german,  but  to  Scipio  Asiaticus,  who  was  really 
his  nearest  of  kin. 

In  the  time  of  Justinian,  the  legislator  no  longer 
understood  these  old  laws;  they  appeared  unjust  to 
him,  and  he  complained  of  the  excessive  rigor  of  the 
laws  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  “which  always  accorded 
the  preference  to  the  masculine  posterity,  and  excluded 
from  the  inheritance  those  who  were  related  to  the  de¬ 
ceased  only  through  females.”  3  Unjust  laws,  if  you 
will,  for  they  made  no  account  of  natural  affection; 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Macart.  ;  in  Lcoch.  Isæus,  VII.  20. 

3  Institutes,  III.  2,  4. 

3  Ibid.  III.  3. 


on  at.  Yir. 


THE  EIGHT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


ioa 


but  singularly  logical  laws,  for  setting  out  from  the 
principle  that  the  inheritance  was  attached  to  the  wor¬ 
ship,  they  excluded  from  the  inheritance  those  whom 
this  religion  did  not  authorize  to  continue  the  worship. 

4.  Effects  of  Emancipation  and  Adoption . 

We  have  already  seen  that  emancipation  and  adop¬ 
tion  produced  a  change  in  a  man’s  worship.  The  first 
separated  him  from  the  paternal  worship,  the  second 
initiated  him  into  the  religion  of  another  family.  Here 
also  the  ancient  law  conformed  to  the  rules  of  religion. 
The  son  who  had  been  excluded  from  the  paternal 
worship  by  emancipation  was  also  excluded  from  the 
inheritance.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stranger  who  had 
been  associated  in  the  worship  of  a  family  by  adoption 
became  a  son  there;  he  continued  its  worship,  and 
inherited  the  estate.  In  both  cases  ancient  law  made 
more  account  of  the  religious  tie  than  of  the  tie  of 
birth. 

As  it  was  contrary  to  religion  that  one  man  should 
have  two  domestic  worships,  so  he  could  not  inherit 
from  two  families.  Besides,  the  adopted  son,  who  in¬ 
herited  of  the  adopting  family,  did  not  inherit  from  his 
natural  family.  Athenian  law  was  very  explicit  on  this 
point.  The  orations  of  Attic  orators  often  show  us  men 
who  have  been  adopted  into  a  family,  and  who  wished 
to  inherit  in  the  one  in  which  they  were  born  ;  but  the 
law  was  against  them.  The  adopted  son  could  not 
inherit  from  his  own  family  unless  he  re-entered  it;  he 
could  not  re-enter  it  except  by  renouncing  the  adopting 
family;  and  he  could  leave  this  latter  only  on  two  con¬ 
ditions:  the  one  was,  that  he  abandoned  the  patrimony 
of  this  family  ;  the  oilier  was,  that  the  domestic  worship, 


104 


THE  FAMIL  T. 


BOOK  II. 


for  the  continuation  of  which  he  had  been  adopted,  did 
not  cease  by  his  abandonment  ;  and,  to  make  this  certain, 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  leave  this  family  a  son,  who 
should  replace  him.  This  son  took  charge  of  the  wor¬ 
ship,  and  inheiited  the  estate;  the  father  could  then 
return  to  the  family  of  his  birth,  and  inherit  its  prop¬ 
erty.  But  this  father  and  son  could  no  longer  inherit 
from  each  other;  they  were  not  of  the  same  family, 
they  were  not  of  kin.1 

We  can  easily  see  what  was  the  idea  of  the  old  legis¬ 
lator  when  he  established  these  precise  rules.  He  did 
not  suppose  it  possible  that  two  estates  could  fall  to  the 
same  heir,  because  two  domestic  worships  could  not  be 
kept  up  by  the  same  person. 

5.  Wills  were  not  known  originally . 

The  right  of  willing  —  that  is  to  say,  of  disposing  of 
one’s  property  alter  death,  in  order  to  make  it  pass  to 
other  than  natural  heirs  —  was  in  opposition  to  the  re¬ 
ligious  creed  that  was  at  the  foundation  of  the  law  of 
property  and  the  law  of  succession.  The  property 
being  inherent  in  the  worship,  and  the  worship  being 
hereditary,  could  one  think  of  a  will  ?  Besides,  prop¬ 
erty  did  not  belong  to  the  individual,  but  to  the  family  ; 
for  man  had  not  acquired  it  by  the  right  of  labor,  but 
through  the  domestic  worship.  Attached  to  the  family, 
it,  was  transmitted  from  the  dead  to  the  living  not 
according  to  the  will  and  choice  of  the  dead,  but  by 
virtue  ol  superior  rules  which  religion  had  estab¬ 
lished. 

1  Isæus,  X.  Demosthenes,  passim.  Gaius,  III.  2.  In¬ 
stitutes ,  III.  1,  2.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  state  that  these 
rules  were  modified  in  the  pretorian  laws. 


CHAP.  VH. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


105 


The  will  was  not  known  in  ancient  Hindu  law. 
Athenian  legislation,  up  to  Solon’s  time,  forbade  it 
absolutely,  and  Solon  himself  permitted  it  only  to  those 
who  left  no  children.1  Wills  were  for  a  long  time 
forbidden  or  unknown  at  Sparta,  and  were  authorized 
only  after  the  Peloponnesian  war.2  Aristotle  speaks 
of  a  time  when  the  case  was  the  same  at  Corinth  and 
at  Thebes.3  It  is  certain  that  the  power  of  trans¬ 
mitting  one’s  property  arbitrarily  by  will  was  not  rec¬ 
ognized  as  a  natural  right  ;  the  constant  principle  of 
the  ancient  ages  was,  that  all  property  should  remain 
in  the  family  to  which  religion  had  attached  it. 

Plato,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Laws,  which  is  largely 
a  commentary  on  the  Athenian  laws,  explains  very 
clearly  the  thought  of  ancient  legislators.  He  sup¬ 
poses  that  a  man  on  his  death-bed  demands  the  power 
to  make  a  will,  and  that  he  cries,  “  O  gods,  is  it  not  very 
hard  that  I  am  not  able  to  dispose  of  my  property  as  I 
may  choose,  and  in  favor  of  any  one  to  whom  I  please 
to  give  it,  leaving  more  to  this  one,  less  to  that  one, 
according  to  the  attachment  they  have  shown  for  me?” 
But  the  legislator  replies  to  this  man,  “Thou  who 
canst  not  promise  thyself  a  single  day,  thou  who  art 
only  a  pilgrim  here  below,  does  it  belong  to  thee  to 
decide  such  affairs?  Thou  art  the  master  neither  of 
thy  property  nor  of  thyself:  thou  and  thy  estate,  all 
these  things,  belong  to  thy  family;  that  is  to  say,  to 
thy  ancestors  and  to  thy  posterity.”4 

For  us  the  ancient  laws  of  Rome  are  very  obscure; 
they  were  obscure  even  to  Cicero.  What  we  know 
reaches  little  farther  back  than  the  Twelve  Tables, 


1  Plutarch,  Solon,  21. 

8  Aristotle  Polit,,  II.  3,  4. 


*  Id.,  Agis,  5. 

4  Plato,  Laws ,  XI. 


106 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


which  certainly  are  not  the  primitive  legislation  ol 
Rome  ;  and  of  these  only  fragments  remain.  This  code 
authorizes  the  will  ;  yet  the  fragment  relating  to  the 
subject  is  too  short,  and  too  evidently  incomplete  to 
enable  us  to  flatter  ourselves  that  we  know  the  exact 
provisions  of  the  legislators  in  this  matter.  W  hen  they 
granted  the  power  of  devising  property,  we  do  not  know 
what  reserve  and  what  conditions  they  placed  upon 
it.1  We  have  no  legal  text,  earlier  than  the  Twelve 
Tables,  that  either  forbids  or  permits  a  will  ;  but  the 
language  preserved  traces  of  a  time  when  wills  were 
not  known  ;  for  it  called  the  son  the  self- successor  and 
necessary  —  heres  suus  et  necessarius.  This  formu¬ 
la,  which  Gaius  and  Justinian  still  employed,  but  which 
was  no  longer  in  accord  with  the  legislation  of  their 
time,  came,  without  doubt,  from  a  distant  epoch,  when 
the  son  could  not  be  disinherited  or  refuse  the  heritage. 
The  father  had  not  then  the  free  disposition  of  his 
fortune.  In  default  of  sons,  and  if  the  deceased  had 
only  collateral  relatives,  the  will  was  not  absolutely  un¬ 
known,  but  was  not  easily  made  valid.  Important  for¬ 
malities  were  necessary.  First,  secrecy  was  not  allowed 
to  the  testator  during  life  ;  the  man  who  disinherited 
his  family,  and  violated  the  law  that  religion  had  estab¬ 
lished,  had  to  do  this  publicly,  in  broad  daylight,  and 
take  upon  himself,  during  his  lifetime,  all  the  odium 
attached  to  such  an  act.  This  was  not  all  ;  it  was  also 
necessary  that  the  will  of  the  testator  should  receive 
the  approbation  of  the  sovereign  authority  —  that  is  to 
say,  of  the  people  assembled  by  curies,  under  the  presi- 

1  Uti  legassit,  ita  jus  esto.  If  we  had  of  Solon’s  law  only 
the  words  duxôtoôai  onwç  uv  iôîX  we  should  also  suppose  that  the 
will  was  permitted  in  all  possible  cases;  but  the  law  adds,  a 

TlUÎÔtÇ  WOt. 


CHAP,  y  LU 


THE  EIGHT  OF  SUCCESSION. 


107 


dency  of  the  pontiff.1  We  must  not  imagine  that  this 
was  an  empty  formality,  particularly  in  the  early  ages. 
These  comitia  by  curies  were  the  most  solemn  assem¬ 
blies  of  the  Roman  city;  and  it  would  be  puerile  to 
say  that  they  convoked  the  people  under  the  presidency 
of  the  religious  chief,  to  act  simply  as  witnesses  at  the 
reading  of  a  will.  We  may  suppose  that  the  people 
voted,  and  we  shall  see,  on  reflection,  that  this  was 
absolutely  necessary.  There  was,  in  fact,  a  general 
law  which  regulated  the  order  of  succession  in  a  rigor¬ 
ous  manner;  to  modify  this  order  in  any  particular, 
another  law  was  necessary.  This  exceptional  law  was 
the  will.  The  right  of  a  man  to  devise  by  will  was  not, 
therefore,  fully  accorded,  and  could  not  be,  so  long  as 
this  society  remained  under  the  empire  of  the  old  re¬ 
ligion.  In  the  belief  of  these  ancient  ages,  the  living 
man  was  only  the  representative,  for  a  few  years,  of  a 
constant  and  immortal  being  —  the  family.  He  held 
the  worship  and  the  property  only  in  trust;  his  right 
to  them  ceased  with  his  life. 

6.  The  Right  of  Primogeniture. 

We  must  transport  ourselves  beyond  the  time  of 
which  history  has  preserved  the  recollection,  to  those 
distant  ages  during  which  domestic  institutions  were 
established,  and  social  institutions  were  prepared.  Of 
this  epoch  there  does  not  remain,  nor  can  there  remain, 
any  written  monument  ;  but  the  laws  which  then  gov¬ 
erned  men  have  left  some  traces  in  the  legislation  of 
succeeding  times. 

1  Ulpian,  XX.  2.  Gaius,  I.  102,  119.  Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27. 
The  testament  calatis  comitiis  was  doubtless  the  oldest  in  use. 
It  was  no  longer  known  in  Cicero’s  time.  {De  Orat .,  I.  53.) 


108 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


In  these  distant  days  we  distinguish  one  institution 
which  must  have  survived  a  long  time,  which  had  a 
considerable  influence  upon  the  future  constitution  of 
societies,  and  without  which  this  constitution  could  not 
be  explained.  This  is  the  right  of  primogeniture. 

I  he  old  religion  established  a  difference  between  the 
older  and  the  younger  son.  “The  oldest,”  said  the 
ancient  Aryas,  “was  begotten  for  the  accomplishment 
of  the  duty  due  the  ancestors;  the  others  are  the  fruit 
of  love.”  In  virtue  of  this  original  superiority,  the 
oldest  had  the  privilege,  after  the  death  of  the  father, 
of  presiding  at  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  domestic  wor¬ 
ship;  he  it  was  who  offered  the  funeral  repast,  and 
pronounced  the  formulas  of  prayer;  “for  the  right  of 
pronouncing  the  prayers  belongs  to  that  son  who  came 
into  the  world  first.”  The  oldest  was,  therefore,  heir 
to  the  hymns,  the  continuator  of  the  worship,  the 
religious  chief  of  the  family.  From  this  creed  flowed  a 
rule  of  law  :  the  oldest  alone  inherited  property.  Thus 
says  an  ancient  passage,  which  the  last  editor  of  the 
Laws  of  Manu  still  inserted  in  the  code:  “The  oldest 
takes  possession  of  the  whole  patrimony,  and  the  other 
brothers  live  under  his  authority  as  if  they  were  under 
that  of  their  father.  The  oldest  son  A  erforms  the 
duties  towards  the  ancestors  ;  he  ought,  therefore,  to 
have  all.”  1 

Greek  law  is  derived  from  the  same  religious  beliefs 
as  Hindu  law;  it  is  not  astonishing,  then,  to  find  here 
also  the  right  of  primogeniture.  Sparta  preserved  it 
longer  than  other  Greek  cities,  because  the  Spartans 

1  Laws  of  Manu ,  IX.  105-107,  126.  This  ancient  rule  was 
modi  tied  as  the  old  religion  became  enfeebled.  Even  in  the 
code  of  Manu  we  find  articles  that  authorize  a  division  of  the 
inheritance. 


UH  AF.  vu. 


THE  RIG  HI  OF  SUCCESSION. 


109 


were  longer  faithful  to  old  institutions  ;  among  them 
the  patrimony  was  indivisible,  and  the  younger  brothers 
had  no  part  of  it.1  It  was  the  same  with  many  of  the 
ancient  codes  that  Aristotle  had  studied.  He  informs 
us,  indeed,  that  the  Theban  code  prescribed  absolutely 
that  the  number  of  lots  of  land  should  remain  un¬ 
changeable,  which  certainly  excluded  the  division 
among  brothers.  An  ancient  law  of  Corinth  also  pro¬ 
vided  that  the  number  of  families  should  remain  in¬ 
variable,  which  could  only  be  the  case  where  the  right 
of  the  oldest  prevented  families  from  becoming  dis¬ 
membered  in  each  generation.2 

Among  the  Athenians  we  need  not  expect  to  find 
this  old  institution  in  full  vigor  in  the  time  of  De¬ 
mosthenes;  but  there  still  existed  at  this  epoch  what 
they  called  the  privilege  of  the  elder.3  It  consisted  in 
retaining,  above  his  proportion,  the  paternal  dwelling  — 
an  advantage  which  was  materially  considerable,  and 
which  was  still  more  considerable  in  a  religious  point 
af  view;  for  the  paternal  house  contained  the  ancient 
hearth  of  the  family.  While  the  younger  sons,  in  the 
time  of  Demosthenes,  left  home  to  light  new  fires,  the 
oldest,  the  true  heir,  remained  in  possession  of  the  pa¬ 
ternal  hearth  and  of  the  tomb  of  his  ancestors.  He  alone 
also  preserved  the  family  name.4  These  were  the  ves¬ 
tiges  of  a  time  when  he  alone  received  the  patrimony. 

We  may  remark,  that  the  inequality  of  the  law  of 
primogeniture,  besides  the  fact  that  it  did  not  strike 
the  minds  of  the  ancients,  over  whom  religion  was  al.l- 

1  Fragments  of  the  Greek  Historians ,  Didot’s  Coll.,  t.  II 

p.  211. 

*  Aristotle,  Polit.,  II.  9;  II.  3. 

3  TToenfitlix,  Demosthenes,  Pro  Phorm..  34. 

4  Demosthenes,  in  Bœot.  de  nomine. 


110 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  11 


powerful,  was  corrected  by  several  of  their  customs. 
Sometimes  the  younger  son  was  adopted  into  a  family, 
and  inherited  property  there  ;  sometimes  he  married 
an  only  daughter;  sometimes,  in  fine,  he  received  some 
extinct  family’s  lot  of  land.  When  all  these  resources 
failed,  younger  sons  were  sent  out  to  join  a  colony. 

As  to  Rome,  we  find  no  law  that  relates  to  the 
right  of  primogeniture  ;  but  we  are  not  to  conclude 
from  this  that  the  right  was  unknown  in  ancient  Italy. 
It  might  have  disappeared,  and  even  its  traces  have 
been  effaced.  What  leads  us  to  believe  that  before  the 
ages  known  to  us  it  was  in  force  is,  that  the  existence 
of  the  Roman  and  Sabine  gens  cannot  be  explained 
without  it.  How  could  a  family  reach  the  number  of 
several  thousand  free  persons,  like  the  Claudian  family, 
or  several  hundred  combatants,  all  patricians,  like  the 
Fabian  family,  if  the  right  of  primogeniture  had  not 
maintained  its  unity  during  a  long  series  of  generations, 
and  had  not  increased  its  numbers  from  age  to  age  by 
preventing  its  dismemberment?  This  ancient  right  of 
primogeniture  is  proved  by  its  consequences,  and,  so  to 
speak,  by  its  works.1 

1  The  old  Latin  language,  moreover,  has  preserved  a  vestige 
which,  feeble  as  it  is,  deserves  to  be  pointed  out.  A  lot  of  land, 
the  domain  of  a  family,  was  called  sors  ;  sors  patrimonium  sig¬ 
nifient,  says  Festus.  The  word  consortes  was  applied  then  to 
those  who  had  among  them  only  a  single  lot  of  land,  and  lived 
on  the  same  domain.  Now,  the  old  language  designated  by  this 
word  brothers,  and  even  those  quite  distantly  related.  This 
bears  witness  to  a  time  when  the  patrimony  and  the  family  were 
indivisible.  (Festus,  v.  Sors.  Cicero,  in  Vcrrem,  II.  323. 
Livy,  XLI.  27  Velleius,  I.  10.  Lucretius,  III.  772;  Vi. 
1280). 


CHAP.  VIII.  AUTHORITY  IN  THE  FAMILY. 


Ill 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Authority  in  the  Family. 

1.  The  Principle  and  Nature  of  the  Paternal  Power 

among  the  Ancients . 

The  family  did  not  receive  its  laws  from  the  city. 
If  the  city  had  established  private  law,  that  law  would 
probably  have  been  different  from  what  we  have  seen. 
It  would  have  established  the  right  of  property  and  the 
right  of  succession  on  different  principles;  for  it  was 
not  for  the  interest  of  the  city  that  land  should  be  in¬ 
alienable  and  the  patrimony  indivisible.  The  law  that 
permitted  a  father  to  sell  or  even  to  kill  his  son  —  a  law 
that  we  find  both  in  Greece  and  in  Rome  —  was  not 
established  by  a  city.  The  city  would  rather  have  said 
to  the  father,  “Your  wife’s  and  your  son’s  life  does  not 
belong  to  you  any  more  than  their  liberty  does.  I  will 
protect  them,  even  against  you;  you  are  not  the  one 
to  judge  them,  or  to  kill  them,  if  they  have  committed 
a  crime;  I  will  be  their  judge.”  If  the  city  did  not 
speak  thus,  it  is  evident  that  it  could  not.  Private 
law  existed  before  the  city.  When  the  city  began  to 
write  its  laws,  it  found  this  law  already  established, 
living,  rooted  in  the  customs,  strong  by  universal  ob¬ 
servance.  The  city  accepted  it,  because  it  could  not  do 
otherwise,  and  dared  not  modify  it,  except  by  degrees. 
Ancient  law  was  not  the  work  of  a  legislator;  it  was, 
on  the  contrary,  imposed  upon  the  legislator.  It  had 
its  birth  in  the  family.  It  sprang  up  spontaneously 
from  the  ancient  principles  which  gave  it  root.  It 
flowed  from  the  religious  belief  which  was  universally 


112 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  L.. 


admitted  in  the  primitive  age  of  these  peoples,  which 
exercised  its  empire  over  their  intelligence  and  their 
wills. 

A  family  was  composed  of  a  father,  a  mother,  chil¬ 
dren,  and  slaves.  This  group,  small  as  it  was,  required 
discipline.  To  whom,  then,  belonged  the  chief  author¬ 
ity?  To  the  father?  No.  There  is  in  every  house 
something  that  is  above  the  father  himself.  It  is  the 
domestic  religion  ;  it  is  that  god  whom  the  Greeks 
called  the  hearth-master,  —  kuna  déonoivui —  whom  the 
Romans  called  Lar  familiaris.  This  divinity  of  the 
interior,  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  the  belief 
that  is  in  the  human  soul,  is  the  least  doubtful  author¬ 
ity.  This  is  what  fixed  rank  in  the  family. 

The  father  ranks  first  in  presence  of  the  sacred  fire. 
He  lights  it,  and  supports  it  ;  he  is  its  priest.  In  all 
religious  acts  his  functions  are  the  highest  ;  he  slays 
the  victim,  his  mouth  pronounces  the  formula  of  prayer 
which  is  to  draw  upon  him  and  his  the  protection  of 
the  gods.  The  family  and  the  worship  are  perpetuated 
through  him;  he  represents,  himself  alone,  the  whole 
series  of  ancestors,  and  from  him  are  to  proceed  the 
entire  series  of  descendants.  Upon  him  rests  the  do¬ 
mestic  worship  ;  he  can  almost  say,  like  the  Hindu,  “I 
am  the  god.”  When  death  shall  come,  he  will  be  a 
divine  beina;  whom  his  descendants  will  invoke. 

This  religion  did  not  place  woman  in  so  high  a  rank. 
The  wife  takes  part  in  the  religious  acts,  indeed,  but 
she  is  not  the  mistress  of  the  hearth.  She  does  not 
derive  her  religion  from  her  birth.  She  was  initiated 
.nto  it  at  her  marriage.  She  has  learned  from  her 
husband  the  prayer  that  she  pronounces.  She  does 
not  represent  the  ancestors,  since  she  is  not  descended 
from  them.  She  herself  will  not  become  an  ancestor 


CHAP.  ^  III.  AUTHORITY  IN  THE  FAMILY.  113 

placed  in  the  tomb,  she  will  not  receive  a  special  wor¬ 
ship.  In  death,  as  in  life,  she  counts  only  as  a  part  of 
her  husband. 

Greek  law,  Roman  law,  and  Hindu  law,  all  derived 
from  this  old  religion,  agree  in  considering  the  wife  as 
always  a  minor.  She  could  never  have  a  hearth  of  her 
own  ;  she  was  never  the  chief  of  a  worship.  At  Rome 
she  received  the  title  of  mater  familias  /  but  she  lost 
this  if  her  husband  died.*  Never  having  a  sacred  fire 
which  belonged  to  her,  she  had  nothing  of  what  gave 
authority  in  the  house.  She  never  commanded  ;  she 
was  never  even  free,  or  mistress  of  herself.  She  was 
always  near  the  hearth  of  another,  repeating  the  prayer 
of  another;  for  all  the  acts  of  religious  life  she  needed 
a  superior,  and  for  all  the  acts  of  civil  life  a  guardian. 

The  Laws  of  Menu  say,  “Woman,  during  her  in* 
fancy,  depends  upon  her  father  ;  during  her  youth,  upon 
her  husband  ;  when  her  husband  is  dead,  upon  her  sons  ; 
if  she  has  no  son,  on  the  nearest  relative  of  her  hus¬ 
band  ;  for  a  woman  ought  never  to  govern  herself 
according  to  her  own  will.”1 2  The  Greek  laws  and 
those  of  Rome  are  to  the  same  effect.  As  a  girl,  she 
is  under  her  father’s  control  ;  if  her  father  dies,  she  is 
governed  by  her  brothers  ;  married,  she  is  under  the 
guardianship  of  her  husband  ;  if  the  husband  dies, 
she  does  not  return  to  her  own  family,  for  she  has  re¬ 
nounced  that  forever  by  the  sacred  marriage;3  the 
widow  remains  subject  to  the  guardianship  of  her  hus¬ 
band’s  agnates  —  that  is  to  say,  of  her  own  sons,  if  stn. 

1  Festus.  v.  Mater  families. 

*  Laws  of  Manu ,  V.  147,  148 

3  She  returned  only  in  case  of  divorce.  Demosthenes,  %n 
Eubulid.f  41. 


8 


114 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  n 


has  any,  or,  in  default  of  sons,  of  the  nearest  kin¬ 
dred.1 *  So  complete  is  her  husband’s  authority  over 
her,  that  he  can,  upon  his  death,  designate  a  guardian 
for  her,  and  even  choose  her  a  second  husband.8 

To  indicate  the  power  of  the  husband  over  the  wife, 
the  Romans  had  a  very  ancient  expression,  which  their 
jurisconsults  have  preserved  ;  it  is  the  word  manus. 
It  is  not  easy  to  discover  the  primitive  sense  of  this 
word.  The  commentators  make  it  the  expression  of 
material  force,  as  if  the  wife  was  placed  under  the 
brutal  hand  of  the  husband.  It  is  quite  probable  that 
this  is  wrong.  The  power  of  the  husband  over  the 
wife  results  in  no  wTise  from  his  superior  strength.  It 
came,  like  all  private  law,  from  the  religious  belief  that 
placed  man  above  woman.  What  proves  this  is,  that  a 
woman  who  had  not  been  married  according  to  the 
sacred  rites,  and  who,  consequently,  had  not  been  as¬ 
sociated  in  the  worship,  was  not  subject  to  the  marital 
power.3 * * * *  It  was  marriage  which  created  this  subordi¬ 
nation,  and  at  the  same  time  the  dignity  of  the  wife. 
So  true  is  it  that  the  right  of  the  strongest  did  not 
constitute  the  family. 

Let  us  pass  to  the  infant.  Here  nature  speaks  for 
itself,  loud  enough.  It  demands  that  the  infant  shall 
have  a  protector,  a  guide,  a  master.  This  religion  is  in 
accord  with  nature  ;  it  says  that  the  father  shall  be  the 

1  Demosthenes,  m  Steph .,  II.  ;  in  Aphob.  Plutarch,  Themisi ., 
32.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  II.  25.  Gaius,  I.  149,  155- 

Aulus  Gellius.,  III.  2.  Macrobius,  I.  3. 

3  Demosthenes,  in  Aphobum  ;  pro  Phormione. 

3  Cicero,  Topic. ,  14.  Tacitus,  Ann..,  IV.  16.  Aulus  Gellius, 

XVIII.  6.  It  will  be  seen  farther  on,  that,  at  a  certain  epoch, 

new  modes  of  marriage  were  instituted,  and  that  they  had  the 

lame  legal  effects  as  the  sacred  marriage. 


CHAP.  VIII. 


AUTHORITY  IN  THE  FAMILY. 


115 


chief  of  the  worship,  and  that  the  son  shall  merely  aid 
him  in  his  sacred  functions.  But  nature  requires  this 
subordination  only  during  a  certain  number  of  years  ; 
religion  requires  more.  Nature  brings  the  son  to  his 
majority;  religion  does  not  grant  it  to  him,  according 
to  ancient  principles;  the  sacred  fire  is  indivisible,  and 
the  same  is  true  of  property.  The  brothers  do  not 
separate  at  the  death  of  their  father  ;  for  a  still  stronger 
reason  they  could  not  separate  from  him  during  his 
life.  In  the  rigor  of  primitive  law,  the  sons  remained 
attached  to  the  father’s  hearth,  and,  consequently, 
subject  to  his  authority;  while  he  lived  they  were 
minors. 

We  may  suppose  that  this  rule  lasted  only  so  long  as 
the  old  domestic  religion  remained  in  full  vigor.  This 
unlimited  subjection  of  the  son  to  the  father  disap¬ 
peared  at  an  early  day  at  Athens.  It  subsisted  longer 
at  Sparta,  where  a  patrimony  was  always  indivisible. 
At  Rome  the  old  rule  was  scrupulously  observed  ;  a 
son  could  never  establish  a  separate  hearth  during  his 
father’s  life;  married  even,  and  the  father  of  children, 
he  was  still  under  parental  authority.1 

Besides,  it  was  the  same  with  the  paternal  as  with 
the  marital  authority;  its  principle  and  condition  were 
the  domestic  worship.  A  son  born  of  concubinage  was 
not  placed  under  the  authority  of  the  father.  Between 
his  father  and  himself  there  existed  no  community  of 
religion  ;  there  was  nothing,  therefore,  that  conferred 

1  When  Gaius  said  of  the  paternal  power,  Jus  proprium  est 
civium  Romanorum,  we  must  understand  that  in  his  time  the 
Roman  law  recognized  this  power  only  in  the  Roman  citizen  : 
this  does  not  mean  that  the  power  had  not  existed  before  in  other 
places,  or  that  it  had  not  been  recognized  by  the  law  of  other 
cities. 


116 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


authority  upon  the  one  and  commanded  obedience 
of  the  other.  Paternity,  of  itself,  gave  the  father  no 
rights. 

Thanks  to  the  domestic  religion,  the  family  was  a 
small  organized  body;  a  little  society,  which  had  its 
chief  and  its  government.  Nothing  in  modern  society 
can  give  us  an  idea  of  this  paternal  authority.  In  prim¬ 
itive  antiquity  the  father  is  not  alone  the  strong  man, 
the  protector  who  has  power  to  command  obedience  ; 
he  is  the  priest,  he  is  heir  to  the  hearth,  the  continuator 
of  the  ancestors,  the  parent  stock  of  the  descendants,  the 
depositary  of  the  mysterious  rites  of  the  worship,  and 
of  the  sacred  formulas  of  prayer.  The  whole  religion 
resides  in  him. 

The  very  name  by  which  he  is  called — pater  —  con¬ 
tains  in  itself  some  curious  information.  The  word  is 
the  same  in  Greek,  in  Latin,  and  in  Sanskrit  ;  from 
which  we  may  conclude  that  this  word  dates  from  a 
time  when  the  Hellenes,  the  Italians,  and  the  Hindus 
still  lived  together  in  Central  Asia.  What  was  its 
signification,  and  what  idea  did  it  then  present  to  the 
minds  of  men?  We  can  discover  this;  for  the  word 
has  preserved  its  primary  signification  in  the  formulas 
of  religious  language  and  in  those  of  judicial  language. 
When  the  ancients,  invoking  Jupiter,  called  him  pater 
hominum  deorumque ,  they  did  not  intend  to  say  that 
Jupiter  was  the  father  of  gods  and  men,  for  they  never 
considered  him  as  such  ;  they  believed,  on  the  contrary, 
that  the  human  race  existed  before  him.  The  same 
title  of  pater  was  given  to  Neptune,  to  Apollo,  to  Bac¬ 
chus,  to  Yulcan,  and  to  Pluto.  These,  assuredly,  men 
never  considered  as  their  fathers  ;  so,  too,  the  title  of 
mater  was  applied  to  Minerva,  Diana,  and  Vesta,  who 
were  reputed  three  virgin  goddesses.  In  judicial  lan- 


CHAP.  VIII. 


AUTHORITY  IN  TI1B  .FAMILY. 


117 


guage,  moreover,  the  title  of  pater,  or  pater  familias , 
might  be  given  to  a  man  who  had  no  children,  who  was 
not  married,  and  who  was  not  even  of  age  to  contract 
marriage.  The  idea  of  paternity,  therefore,  was  not 
attached  to  this  word.  The  old  language  had  another 
word  which  properly  designated  the  father,  and  which, 
as  ancient  as  pater ,  is  likewise  found  in  the  language 
of  the  Greeks,  of  the  Romans,  and  of  the  Hindus 
( gânitar ,  ytwipr^,  genitor).  The  word  pater  had  an¬ 
other  sense.  In  religious  language  they  applied  it  to 
the  gods;  in  legal  language  to  every  man  who  had  a 
worship  and  a  domain.  The  poets  show  us  that  they 
applied  it  to  every  one  whom  they  wished  to  honor. 
The  slave  and  the  client  applied  it  to  their  master.  It 
was  synonymous  with  the  words  rex,  {tuadevç. 

It  contained  in  itself  not  the  idea  of  paternity,  but  that 
of  power,  authority,  majestic  dignity. 

That  such  a  word  should  have  been  applied  to  the 
father  of  a  family  until  it  became  his  most  common 
appellation,  is  assuredly  a  very  significant  fact,  and  one 
whose  importance  will  appear  to  all  who  wish  to  under¬ 
stand  ancient  institutions.  The  history  of  thh  word 
suffices  to  give  us  an  idea  of  the  power  which  the  father 
exercised  for  a  long  time  in  the  family,  and  of  the  senti¬ 
ment  of  veneration  which  was  due  him  as  a  pontiff  and 
a  sovereign. 

2.  Enumeration  of  the  Eights  that  composed  Pater¬ 
nal  Power. 

Greek  and  Roman  laws  recognized  in  the  father  this 
unlimited  power  with  which  religion  had  at  first  clothed 
him.  The  numerous  and  diverse  rights  which  these 
laws  conferred  upon  him  may  be  divided  into  three 


4.18 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


classes,  according  as  we  consider  the  father  of  a  family 
as  a  religious  chief,  as  the  master  of  the  property,  or 
as  a  judge. 

I.  The  father  is  the  supreme  chief  of  the  domestic 
religion  ;  he  regulates  all  the  ceremonies  of  the  wor¬ 
ship,  as  he  understands  them,  or,  rather,  as  he  has  seen 
his  father  perform  them.  No  one  contests  his  sacer¬ 
dotal  supremacy.  The  city  itself  and  its  pontiffs  can 
change  nothing  in  his  worship.  As  priest  of  the  hearth 
he  recognizes  no  superior. 

As  religious  chief,  he  is  responsible  for  the  perpetuity 
of  the  worship,  and,  consequently,  for  that  of  the  fam¬ 
ily.  Whatever  affects  this  perpetuity,  which  is  his  first 
care  and  his  first  duty,  depends  upon  him  alone.  From 
this  flows  a  whole  series  of  rights  :  — 

The  right  to  recognize  the  child  at  its  birth,  or  to 
reject  it.  This  right  is  attributed  to  the  father  by  the 
Greek  laws,1  as  well  as  by  those  of  Rome.  Barbarous 
as  this  is,  it  is  not  contrary  to  the  principles  on  which 
the  family  is  founded.  Even  uncontested  filiation  is 
not  sufficient  to  admit  one  into  the  sacred  circle  of  the 
family  ;  the  consent  of  its  chief,  and  an  initiation  into 
its  worship,  are  necessary.  So  long  as  the  child  is  not 
associated  in  the  domestic  religion,  he  is  nothing  to 
the  father. 

The  right  to  repudiate  the  wife,  either  in  case  of 
sterility,  because  the  family  must  not  become  extinct, 
or  in  case  of  adultery,  because  the  family  and  the  de¬ 
scendants  ought  to  be  free  from  all  debasement. 

The  right  to  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  —  that  is 
to  say,  to  cede  to  another  the  power  which  he  has  over 
her.  The  right  of  marrying  his  son  ;  the  marriage  of 
the  son  concerns  the  perpetuity  of  the  family. 

1  Herodotus,  L.  6&.  Plutarch,  Alcib.,  23  ;  Agesilaus,  3- 


CHAP.  VIII. 


AUTHORITY  IN  TH*,  TAMILY. 


119 


Tho  right  to  emancipate —  that  is  to  say,  to  exclude 
a  son  from  the  family  and  the  worship.  The  right  to 
adopt  —  that  is  to  say,  to  introduce  a  stranger  to  the 
domestic  hearth. 

The  right,  at  his  death,  of  naming  a  guardian  for  his 
wife  and  children. 

It  is  necessary  to  remark  that  all  these  rights  be. 
longed  to  the  father  alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  the 
other  members  of  the  family.  The  wife  had  not  the 
right  of  divorce,  at  least  in  primitive  times.  Even  when 
a  widow,  she  could  neither  emancipate  nor  adopt.  She 
was  never  the  guardian  even  of  her  own  children.  In 
case  of  divorce,  the  children  remained  with  the  father, 
—  even  the  daughters.  Her  children  were  never  in  her 
power.  Her  consent  was  not  asked  for  the  marriage 
of  her  own  daughter.1 

II.  We  have  seen  above  that  property  was  not 
understood,  originally,  as  an  individual  right,  but  as  a 
family  right.  The  fortune,  as  Plato  says,  formally,  and 
as  all  the  ancient  legislators  say,  implicitly,  belongs  to 
the  ancestors  and  the  descendants.  This  property,  by 
its  very  nature,  could  not  be  divided.  There  could  be 
in  each  family  but  one  proprietor,  which  was  the  family 
itselfj  and  only  one  to  enjoy  the  use  of  property  —  the 
father.  This  principle  explains  several  peculiarities  of 
ancient  law. 

The  property  not  being  capable  of  division,  and  rest¬ 
ing  entirely  on  the  head  of  the  father,  neither  wife  nor 
children  had  the  least  part  in  it.  The  dotal  system, 
and  even  the  community  of  goods,  were  then  unknown. 
The  dowry  of  the  wife  belonged,  without  reserve,  to 
the  husband,  who  exercised  over  her  dowry  not  only 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul.,  40  and  43.  Gain?,  T.  155.  Ulpian, 
VIII.  8.  Institutes,  I.  9.  Digest ,  I.  tit.  1,  11 


120 


THK  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


the  rights  of  an  administrator,  but  of  an  owner.  What¬ 
ever  the  wife  might  have  acquired  during  her  marriage 
fell  into  the  hands  of  lier  husband.  She  did  not  even 
recover  her  dower  on  becoming  a  widow.1 

The  son  was  in  the  same  condition  as  the  wife;  he 
owned  nothing.  No  donation  made  by  him  was  valid, 
since  he  had  nothing  of  his  own.  He  could  acquire 
nothing;  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  the  profits  of  his  trade, 
were  his  father’s.  If  a  will  was  made  in  his  favor  by  a 
stranger,  his  father,  not  himself,  received  the  legacy. 
This  explains  the  provision  of  the  Roman  law  which 
forbade  all  contracts  of  sale  between  father  and  son.  If 
the  father  sold  to  the  son,  he  sold  to  himself,  as  the 
son  acquired  only  for  the  father.2 

We  see  in  the  Roman  laws,  and  we  find  also  in  the 
laws  of  Athens,  that  a  father  could  sell  his  son.3  This 
was  because  the  father  might  dispose  of  all  the  prop¬ 
erty  of  the  family,  and  the  son  might  be  looked  upon  as 
property,  since  his  labor  was  a  source  of  income.  The 
father  might,  therefore,  according  to  choice,  keep  this 
instrument  oflabor,  or  resign  it  to  another.  To  resign 
it  was  called  selling  the  son.  The  texts  of  the  Roman 
law  that  we  have  do  not  inform  us  clearly  as  to  the 
nature  of  this  contract  of  sale,  nor  on  the  reservations 
that  might  have  been  contained  in  it.  It  appears  cer¬ 
tain  that  the  son  thus  sold  did  not  become  the  slave  of 
the  purchaser.  *  His  liberty  was  not  sold  ;  only  his  labor. 

1  Gaius,  II.  98.  All  these  rules  of  primitive  law  were  modi¬ 
fied  by  the  pretorian  law. 

2  Cicero,  De  Lcgib.,  II.  20.  Gaius,  II.  87.  Digest ,  XVIII. 

tit.  1,  2. 

3  Plutarch,  Solon ,  13.  Dionys.  of  Halic.,  II.  26.  Gaius,  I. 
li/  ;  I.  132;  IV.  79.  Ulpian,  X.  1.  Livy,  XLI.  8.  Festus,  v. 
Dtmimitus • 


URAJt*.  Yin.  AUTHORITY  IN  THE  FAMILY. 


121 


Even  in  this  state  the  son  remained  subject  to  the 
paternal  authority,  which  proves  that  he  was  not  con¬ 
sidered  to  have  left  the  family.  We  may  suppose  that 
this  sale  had  no  other  effect  than  to  cede  the  possession 
of  the  son  for  a  time  by  a  sort  of  contract  to  hire. 
Later  it  was  employed  only  as  an  indirect  means  of 
emancipating  the  son. 

III.  Plutarch  informs  us  that  at  Rome  women  could 
not  appear  in  court  even  as  witnesses.1  We  read  in 
the  jurisconsult  Gains,  “  It  should  be  known  that  noth¬ 
ing  can  be  granted  in  the  way  of  justice  to  persons 
under  power  —  that  is  to  say,  to  wives,  sons,  and 
slaves.  For  it  is  reasonably  concluded  that,  since 
these  persons  can  own  no  property,  neither  can  they 
reclaim  anything  in  point  of  justice.  If  a  son,  sub¬ 
ject  to  his  father’s  will,  has  committed  a  crime,  the 
action  lies  against  the  father;  nor  has  the  father  him¬ 
self  any  action  against  his  son.”2 

From  all  this  it  is  clear  that  the  wife  and  the  son 
could  not  be  plaintiffs  or  defendants,  or  accusers,  or 
accused,  or  witnesses.  Of  all  the  family  the  father 
alone  could  appear  before  the  tribunal  of  the  city  ; 
public  justice  existed  only  for  him  ;  and  he  alone  was 
responsible  for  the  crimes  committed  by  his  family. 

Justice  for  wife  and  son  was  not  in  the  city,  because 
it  was  in  the  house.  The  chief  of  the  family  was  their 
judge,  placed  upon  a  judgment  seat  in  virtue  of  his 
marital  and  parental  authority,  in  the  name  of  the  fam¬ 
ily  and  under  the  eyes  of  the  domestic  divinities.3 4 

1  Plutarch,  Publicola ,  8.  *  Gaius,  II.  96;  IV.  77,  78 

3  There  came  a  time  when  this  jurisdiction  was  modified;  the 
father  consulted  the  whole  family,  and  formed  it  into  a  tribunal, 

over  which  he  presided.  Tacit.,  XIII.  32.  Digest ,  XXIII.  tit. 

4  5.  Plato,  Laws ,  IX. 


122 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


Livy  relates  that  the  senate,  wishing  to  extirpate 
the  worship  of  Bacchus  from  Rome,  decreed  the  pun¬ 
ishment  of  death  against  all  who  had  taken  part  in  it. 
The  decree  was  easily  executed  upon  the  citizens,  but 
when  it  came  to  the  women,  who  were  not  the  least 
guilty,  a  grave  difficulty  presented  itself;  the  women 
were  not  answerable  to  the  state;  the  family  alone  had 
the  right  to  judge  them.  The  senate  respected  this 
old  principle,  and  left  to  the  fathers  and  husbands  the 
duty  of  pronouncing  the  sentence  of  death  against  the 
women. 

This  judicial  authority,  which  the  chief  of  the  family 
exercised  in  his  house,  was  complete  and  without  appeal. 
He  could  condemn  to  death  like  the  magistrate  in  the 
city,  and  no  authority  could  modify  his  sentence.  “  The 
husband,”  says  Cato  the  Elder,  “is  the  judge  of  his 
wife;  his  power  has  no  limit;  he  can  do  what  he 
wishes.  If  she  has  committed  a  fault,  he  punishes  her; 
if  she  has  drank  wine,  he  condemns  her;  if  she  has 
been  guilty  of  adultery,  he  kills  her.”  The  right  was 
the  same  in  regard  to  children.  Valerius  Maximus 
cites  a  certain  Atilius  whi>  killed  his  daughter  as  guilty 
of  unchastity,  and  everybody  will  recall  the  father  who 
put  his  son,  an  accomplice  of  Catiline,  to  death. 

Facts  of  this  nature  are  numerous  in  Roman  history. 
It  would  be  a  false  idea  to  suppose  that  the  father  had 
an  absolute  right  to  kill  his  wife  and  children.  He 
was  their  judge.  If  he  put  them  to  death,  it  was  only 
by  virtue  of  his  right  as  judge.  As  the  father  of  the 
family  was  alone  subject  to  the  judgment  of  the  city, 
the  wife  arid  the  son  could  have  no  other  judge  than 
him.  Within  his  family  he  was  the  only  magistrate. 

We  must  also  remark  that  the  paternal  authority 
was  not  an  arbitrary  power,  like  that  which  would  be 


'7fiAf\  IX.  MORALS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  FAMILY. 


123 


derived  from  the  right  of  the  strongest.  It  had  its 
foundation  in  a  belief  which  all  shared  alike,  and  it 
found  its  limits  in  this  same  belief.  For  example  :  the 
father  had  the  right  to  exclude  his  son  from  the  fam- 
ily;  but  he  well  knew  that  if  he  did  this  the  family  ran 
a  risk  of  becoming  extinct,  and  the  manes  of  his  ances¬ 
tors  of  falling  into  eternal  oblivion.  He  had  the  right 
to  adopt  a  stranger;  but  religion  forbade  him  to  do 
this  if  he  had  a  son.  He  was  sole  proprietor  of  the 
goods;  but  he  had  not,  at  least  originally,  a  right  to 
alienate  them.  He  could  repudiate  his  wife  ;  but  to 
do  this  he  had  to  break  the  religious  bond  which  mar- 
riage  had  established.  Thus  religion  imposed  upon  the 
father  as  many  obligations  as  it  conferred  rights. 

Such  for  a  long  time  was  the  ancient  family.  The 
spiritual  belief  was  sufficient  without  the  need  of  the 
law  of  force,  or  of  the  authority  of  a  social  power  to 
constitute  it  regularly,  to  give  it  a  discipline,  a  govern¬ 
ment  and  justice,  and  to  establish  private  law  in  all  its 
details. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Morals  of  the  Ancient  Family. 

History  does  not  study  material  facts  and  institu¬ 
tions  alone  ;  its  true  object  of  study  is  the  human 
mind  :  it  should  aspire  to  know  what  this  mind  has 
believed,  thought,  and  felt  in  the  different  ages  of  the 
life  of  the  human  race. 

We  described,  at  the  opening  of  this  book,  the  an¬ 
cient  opinion  which  men  held  concerning  their  destiny 
after  death.  We  have  shown  how  this  creed  produced 


124 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


domestic  institutions  and  private  law.  It  remains  to 
discover  what  its  action  was  upon  morals  in  primitive 
societies.  Without  pretending  that  this  old  religion 
created  moral  sentiments  in  the  heart  of  man,  we  may 
at  least  believe  that  it  was  associated  with  them  to 
fortify  them,  to  give  them  greater  authority,  to  assure 
their  supremacy  and  their  right  of  direction  over  the 
conduct  of  men,  sometimes  also  to  give  them  a  false 
bias. 

The  religion  of  these  primitive  ages  was  exclusively 
domestic  ;  so  also  were  morals.  Religion  did  not  say 
to  a  man,  showing  him  another  man,  That  is  thy 
brother.  It  said  to  him,  That  is  a  stranger  ;  he  can¬ 
not  participate  in  the  religious  acts  of  thy  hearth  ;  he 
cannot  approach  the  tomb  of  thy  family  ;  he  has  other 
gods  than  thine,  and  cannot  unite  with  thee  in  a  com¬ 
mon  prayer  ;  thy  gods  reject  his  adoration,  and  regard 
him  as  their  enemy  ;  he  is  thy  foe  also. 

In  this  religion  of  the  hearth  man  never  supplicates 
the  divinity  in  favor  of  other  men  ;  he  invokes  him 
only  for  himself  and  his.  A  Greek  proverb  has  re¬ 
mained  as  a  souvenir  and  a  vestige  of  this  ancient  isola¬ 
tion  of  man  in  prayer.  In  Plutarch’s  time  they  still 
said  to  the  egotist,  You  sacrifice  to  the  hearth.1  This 
signified,  You  separate  yourself  from  other  citizens; 
you  have  no  friends  ;  your  fellow-men  are  nothing  to 
you  ;  you  live  solely  for  yourself  and  yours.  This 
proverb  pointed  to  a  time  when,  all  religion  being 
around  the  hearth,  the  horizon  of  morals  and  of  affec¬ 
tion  had  not  yet  passed  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of 
the  family. 

It  is  natural  that  moral  ideas,  like  religious  ideas, 

1  r Eot'ui  ôrsiç.  Pseudo-Plutarch,  ed.  Dubner,  V.  167. 


CHAP.  IX.  MORALS  OP  THE  ANCIENT  FAMILY. 


125 


should  have  their  commencement  and  progress,  and 
the  god  of  the  primitive  generations  in  this  race  was 
very  small  ;  by  degrees  men  made  him  larger  ;  so 
morals,  very  narrow  and  incomplete  at  first,  became 
insensibly  enlarged,  until,  from  stage  to  stage,  they 
reached  the  point  of  proclaiming  the  duty  of  love  to¬ 
wards  all  mankind.  The  point  of  departure  was  the 
family,  and  it  was  under  the  influence  of  the  domestic 
religion  that  duties  first  appeared  to  the  eyes  of  man. 

Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  this  religion  of  the  fire 
and  of  the  tomb  in  its  flourishing  period.  Man  sees 
a  divinity  near  him.  It  is  present,  like  conscience  it¬ 
self,  to  his  minutest  actions.  This  fragile  being  finds 
himself  under  the  eye  of  a  witness  who  never  leaves 
him.  He  never  feels  himself  alone.  At  his  side  in 
the  house,  in  the  field,  he  has  protectors  to  sustain  him 
in  the  toils  of  life,  and  judges  to  punish  his  guilty  ac¬ 
tions.  “  The  Lares,”  said  the  Romans,  “  are  formida¬ 
ble  divinities,  whose  duty  it  is  to  punish  mankind,  and 
to  watch  over  all  that  passes  in  the  interior  of  the 
house.”  The  Penates  they  also  describe  as  “  gods 
who  enable  us  to  live  ;  they  nourish  our  bodies  and 
regulate  our  minds.”  1 

Men  loved  to  apply  to  the  holy  fire  the  epithet  of 
chaste,  and  they  believed  that  it  enjoined  chastity  upon 
mortals.  No  act  materially  or  morally  impure  could 
be  committed  in  its  presence. 

The  first  ideas  of  wrong,  of  chastisement,  of  expia¬ 
tion,  seem  to  have  come  bom  this.  The  man  who  felt 
guilty  no  longer  dared  to  approach  his  own  hearth  ; 
his  god  repelled  him.  He  who  had  shed  blood  was 
no  longer  allowed  to  sacrifice,  or  to  offer  libations,  or 


1  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  51.  Macrobius,  Sat.,  III.  4. 


126 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


prayer,  or  to  offer  the  sacred  repast  The  god  was  so 
severe  that  he  admitted  no  excuse  ;  he  did  not  d  s- 
tinguish  between  an  involuntary  murder  and  a  pre¬ 
meditated  crime.  The  hand  stained  with  blood  could 
no  longer  touch  sacred  objects.1  To  enable  a  man  to 
renew  his  worship,  and  to  regain  possession  of  his 
god,  he  was  required  at  least  to  purify  himself  by  an 
expiatory  ceremony.2  This  religion  knew  pity,  and 
had  rites  to  efface  the  stains  of  the  soul.  Narrow  and 
material  as  it  was,  it  still  knew  how  to  console  man  for 
his  errors. 

If  it  absolutely  ignored  the  duties  of  charity,  at  any 
rate  it  traced  for  man  with  admirable  precision  his 
family  duties.  It  rendered  marriage  obligatory  ;  celi¬ 
bacy  was  a  ciime  in  the  eyes  of  a  religion  that 
made  the  perpetuity  of  the  family  the  first  and  most 
holy  of  duties.  But  the  union  which  it  prescribed 
could  be  accomplished  only  in  the  presence  of  the 
domestic  divinities  ;  it  is  the  religious,  sacred,  indisso¬ 
luble  union  of  the  husband  and  wife.  No  man  could 
omit  the  rites,  and  make  of  marriage  a  simple  contract 
by  consent,  as  it  became  in  the  latest  period  of  Greek 
and  Roman  society.  This  ancient  religion  forbade  it, 
and  if  one  dared  to  offend  in  this  particular,  it  pun¬ 
ished  him  for  it.  For  the  son  sprung  from  such  a 
union  was  considered  a  bastard,  that  is  to  say,  a  being 
who  had  neither  place  nor  sacred  fire  ;  he  had  no  right 
t  ■>  perform  any  sacred  act  ;  he  could  not  pray.3 

This  same  religion  watched  with  care  over  the 
purity  of  the  family.  In  its  eyes  the  greatest  of  crimes 
was  adultery.  For  the  first  rule  of  the  worship  was 

1  Hdts.,  I.  35.  Virgil,  Æn.,  II.  719.  Plutarch,  Theseus ,  12 

s  Apollonius  of  Rhodes,  IV.  704-707.  Æsch.,  Choeph.>  96. 

*  Isærs,  VII.  Demosthenes,  in  Mvcari. 


CHAP.  IX.  MORALS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  FAMILY. 


121 


that  the  sacred  fire  should  be  transmitted  from  father 
to  son,  and  adultery  disturbed  the  order  of  birth.  An¬ 
other  rule  was,  that  the  tomb  should  contain  only  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  family  ;  but  the  son  born  of  adultery  was  a 
stranger.  If  he  was  buried  in  the  tomb,  all  the  princi- 
pies  of  the  religion  were  violated,  the  worship  defiled, 
the  sacred  fire  became  impure;  every  offering  at  the 
tomb  became  an  act  of  impiety.  Worse  still,  by 
adultery  the  series  of  descendants  was  broken  ;  the 
family,  even  though  living  men  knew  it  not,  became 
extinct,  and  there  was  no  more  divine  happiness  for 
the  ancestors.  The  Hindu  also  says,  “The  son  born 
of  adultery  annihilates  in  this  world  and  in  the  next 
the  offerings  made  to  the  manes.1 

Here  is  the  reason  that  the  laws  of  Greece  and 
Rome  give  the  father  the  right  to  reject  the  child  just 
born.  Here,  too,  is  the  reason  that  they  are  so  rigor¬ 
ous,  so  inexorable,  against  adultery.  At  Athens  the 
husband  is  allowed  to  kill  the  guilty  one.  At  Rome 
the  husband,  as  the  wife’s  judge,  condemns  her  to 
death.  This  religion  was  so  severe  that  a  man  had 
not  even  the  right  to  pardon  completely,  and  that  he 
was  forced  at  least  to  repudiate  his  wife.2 

These,  then,  are  the  first  moral  and  domestic  laws 
discovered  and  sanctioned.  Here  is,  besides  the  nat¬ 
ural  sentiment  —  an  imperious  religion,  which  tells  the 
husband  and  wife  that  they  are  united  forever,  and 

1  Laws  of  Manu ,  III.  175. 

*  Demosthenes,  in  Near.,  89.  Though  this  primitive  moral¬ 
ity  condemned  adultery,  it  did  not  reprove  incest;  religion 
authorized  it.  The  prohibitions  relative  to  marriage  were  the 
reverse  of  ours.  One  might  marry  his  sister  (Demosthenes,  in 
Neœr .,  22  ;  Corn.  Nepos.,  prooemium  ;  id.,  Life  of  Cimon  ;  Minu- 
cius  Felix,  in  Octavio ),  but  it  was  forbidden,  as  a  principle,  to 
marry  a  woman  of  another  city. 


128 


THE  FAMILY. 


cook:  II. 


that  from  this  union  flow  rigorous  duties,  the  neglect 
of  which  brings  with  it  the  gravest  consequences  in 
this  life  and  in  the  next.  Hence  came  the  serious  and 
sacred  character  of  the  conjugal  union  among  the  an¬ 
cients,  and  the  purity  which  the  family  long  preserved. 

This  domestic  morality  prescribed  still  other  duties. 
It  taught  the  wife  that  she  ought  to  obey  ;  the  hus¬ 
band,  that  he  ought  to  command.  It  instructed  both 
to  respect  each  other.  The  wife  had  rights,  for  she 
had  her  place  at  the  sacred  fire;  it  was  her  duty  to  see 
that  it  did  not  die  out.1  She  too,  then,  has  her  priest¬ 
hood.  Where  she  is  not  found,  the  domestic  worship 
is  incomplete  and  insufficient.  It  was  a  great  misfor¬ 
tune  to  a  Greek  to  have  a  “  hearth  deprived  of  a  wife.” 2 
Among  the  Romans  the  presence  of  the  wife  was  so 
necessary  in  the  sacrifices  that  the  priest  lost  his  office 
on  becoming  a  widower.3 

Jt  was,  doubtless,  to  this  division  of  the  domestic 
priesthood  that  the  mother  of  the  family  owed  the 
veneration  with  which  they  never  ceased  to  surround 
her  in  Greek  and  Roman  society  ;  hence  it  came  that 
the  wife  had  the  same  title  in  the  family  as  the  hus¬ 
band.  The  Romans  said  pater  famiJias  and  mater 
familias  ;  the  Greeks,  olxoÔFanÔTTjç  and  olxfiéonoiru  ; 
the  Hindus,  gri/iapati  and  grehapatni.  Hence  also 
came  this  formula,  which  the  wife  pronounced  in  the 
Roman  marriage:  ubi  tu  Cains ,  ego  Caia  —  a  formula 
which  tells  us  that,  if  in  the  house  there  was  not  equal 
authority,  there  was  equal  dignity. 

As  to  the  son,  we  have  seen  him  subject  to  the 

1  Cato,  143.  Dion  vs.  of  Ilalic.,  II.  22.  Laics  of  Manu ,  III. 
62;  V.  151. 

2  Xenophon,  Govt,  of  the  Lacedcemonians. 

2  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  50. 


CHAP.  IX.  MORALS  OF  TIIE  ANCIENT  FAMILY.  129 

authority  of  a  father,  who  could  sell  him  or  condemn 
him  to  death.  But  this  son  had  also  his  part  in  the 
worship  ;  he  filled  a  place  in  the  religious  ceremonies  ; 
his  presence  on  certain  days  was  so  necessary  that  the 
Homan  who  had  no  son  was  forced  to  adopt  a  fictitious 
one  for  those  days,  in  order  that  the  rites  might  be  per¬ 
formed.1  And  here  religion  established  a  very  power¬ 
ful  bond  between  father  and  son.  They  believed  in  a 
second  life  in  the  tomb  —  a  life  happy  and  calm  if  the 
funeral  repasts  were  regularly  offered.  Thus  the  father 
is  convinced  that  his  destiny  after  this  life  will  depend 
upon  the  care  that  his  son  will  take  of  his  tomb,  and  the 
son,  on  his  part,  is  convinced  that  his  father  will  be¬ 
come  a  god  after  death,  whom  he  will  have  to  invoke. 

We  can  imagine  how  much  respect  and  reciprocal 
affection  this  belief  would  establish  in  the  family.  The 
ancients  gave  to  the  domestic  virtues  the  name  of 
'piety  —  the  obedience  of  the  son  to  1ns  father,  the  love 
which  he  bore  to  his  mother.  This  was  piety — pietas 
erga  parentes.  The  attachment  of  the  father  for  the 
child,  the  tenderness  of  the  mother,  —  these,  too,  were 
piety — pietas  ergaliberos .  Everything  in  the  family 
was  divine.  The  sense  of  duty,  natural  affection,  the 
religious  idea,  —  all  these  were  confounded,  were  con¬ 
sidered  as  one,  and  were  expressed  by  the  same  word. 

It  will,  perhaps,  appear  strange  to  find  love  of  home 
counted  among  the  virtues;  but  it  was  so  counted 
among  the  ancients.  This  sentiment  had  a  deep  and 
powerful  hold  upon  their  minds.  Anchises,  when  he 
secs  Troy  in  flames,  is  still  unwilling  to  leave  his  old 
home.  Ulysses,  when  countless  treasures,  and  immor¬ 
tality  itself,  are  offered  him,  wishes  only  again  to  see 
the  flame  of  his  own  hearth-fire.  Let  us  come  down  tc 

Dionys.  of  Halic.,  II.  20,  22. 

9 


l 


130 


TIÏE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


Cicero’s  time  ;  it  is  no  longer  a  poet,  but  a  statesman, 
who  speaks:  “Here  is  my  religion,  here  is  my  race, 
here  are  the  traces  of  my  forefathers.  I  cannot  express 
the  charm  which  I  find  here,  and  which  penetrates  my 
heart  and  my  senses.”  1  We  must  place  ourselves,  in 
thought,  in  the  midst  of  these  primitive  generations  to 
understand  how  lively  and  powerful  were  these  senti¬ 
ments,  which  were  already  enfeebled  in  Cicero’s  day. 
For  us  the  house  is  merely  a  domicile  —  a  shelter;  we 
leave  it,  and  forget  it  with  little  trouble  ;  or,  if  we  are 
attached  to  it,  this  is  merely  by  the  force  of  habit  and  of 
recollections;  because,  for  us,  religion  is  not  there; 
our  God  is  the  God  of  the  universe,  and  we  find  him 
everywhere.  It  was  entirely  different  among  the  an¬ 
cients;  they  found  their  principal  divinity  within  the 
house  :  this  was  their  providence,  which  protected 
them  individually,  which  heard  their  prayers,  and 
granted  their  wishes.  Out  of  the  house,  man  no  longer 
felt  the  presence  of  a  god  ;  the  god  of  his  neighbor 
was  a  hostile  god.  Then  a  man  loved  his  house  as  he 
now  loves  his  church.2 

Thus  the  religion  of  the  primitive  ages  wras  not 
foreign  to  the  moral  development  of  this  part  of  hu¬ 
manity.  Their  gods  enjoined  purity,  and  forbade  the 
shedding  of  blood;  the  notion  of  justice,  if  it  was  not 
born  of  this  belief,  must  at  least  have  been  fortified  by 
it.  These  gods  belonged  in  common  to  all  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  same  family  ;  thus  the  family  was  united 
by  a  powerful  tie,  and  all  its  members  learned  to  love 
and  respect  each  other.  These  gods  lived  in  the  in- 

1  Cicero,  De  Legib.,  H.  1.  Pro  Domo,  41. 

2  Of  the  sanctity  of  the  domicile,  which  the  ancients  always 
spoke  of  as  inviolable,  Demosthenes,  in  And  rot.,  52;  in  Ever- 
gum ,  00.  Digest ,  de  in  jus  voc .,  II.  4. 


C1IAP.  X.  TH  E  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  131 


terior  of  eacli  house;  a  man  loved  bis  house,  bis  borne, 
fixed  and  durable,  which  be  bad  received  from  his  an¬ 
cestors,  and  which  he  transmitted  to  his  children  as  a 
sanctuary. 

Ancient  morality,  governed  by  this  belief,  knew  no 
charity;  but  it  taught  at  least  the  domestic  virtues. 
Among  this  race  the  isolation  of  the  family  was  the 
commencement  of  morals.  Duties,  clear,  precise,  and 
imperious,  appeared,  but  they  were  restricted  within  a 
narrow  circle.  This  narrow  character  of  primitive 
morals  we  must  recollect  as  we  proceed  ;  for  civil  so¬ 
ciety,  founded  later  on  these  same  principles,  put  on 
the  same  character,  and  several  singular  traits  of  an¬ 
cient  politics  are  explained  by  this  fact.1 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Gens  at  Rome  and  in  Greece. 

We  find  in  the  writings  of  Roman  jurists  and  in 
Greek  writers  the  traces  of  an  antique  institution  which 
appears  to  have  had  its  flourishing  period  in  the  first 
ages  of  Greek  and  Italian  societies,  but  which,  be¬ 
coming  enfeebled  by  degrees,  left  vestiges  that  were 
hardly  perceptible  in  the  later  portion  of  their  history. 
We  speak  of  what  the  Romans  called  gens ,  and  the 
Greeks  yéroç. 

1  What  is  said  of  ancient  morals  in  this  chapter  is  intended  to 
apply  to  those  peoples  that  afterwards  became  Greeks  and  Ho¬ 
mans.  This  morality  was  modified  with  time,  especially  among 
the  Greeks.  Already  in  the  Odyssey  we  find  new  sentiments  and 
other  manners. 


132 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


As  the  nature  and  constitution  of  the  gens  have  been 
much  discussed,  it  may  not  be  amiss  here  to  point  out 
what  has  constituted  the  difficulty  of  the  problem. 

The  gens ,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  formed  a  body 
whose  constitution  was  radically  aristocratic.  It  was 
through  their  internal  organization  that  the  patricians 
of  Rome  and  the  Eupatrids  of  Athens  were  able  to 
perpetuate  their  privileges  for  so  long  a  time.  No 
sooner  had  the  popular  party  gained  the  upper  hand, 
than  they  attacked  this  old  institution  with  all  their 
power.  If  they  had  been  able  completely  to  destroy 
it,  they  would  probably  not  have  left  us  the  slightest 
memorial  of  it.  But  it  was  singularly  endowed  with 
vitality,  and  deeply  rooted  in  their  manners,  and  they 
could  not  entirely  blot  it  out.  They  therefore  contented 
themselves  with  modifying  it.  They  took  away  its  essen¬ 
tial  character,  and  left  only  its  external  features,  which 
were  not  in  the  w my  of  the  new  regime.  Thus,  at  Rome, 
the  plebeians  undertook  to  form  gentes ,  in  imitation  of 
the  patricians  ;  at  Athens  they  attempted  to  overthrow 
the  gentes,  to  blend  them  together,  and  to  replace  them 
by  the  demes ,  which  were  established  in  imitation  of 
them.  We  shall  have  to  return  to  the  subject  when 
we  speak  of  the  revolutions.  Let  it  suffice  here  for  us 
to  remark,  that  this  profound  alteration  wdiich  the 
democracy  introduced  into  the  regime  of  the  gens  is 
of  a  nature  to  mislead  those  who  undertake  to  learn 
its  primitive  constitution.  Indeed,  almost  all  the  in¬ 
formation  concerning  it  that  has  come  down  to  us  dates 
from  the  epoch  when  it  had  been  thus  transformed, 
and  shows  us  only  that  part  which  the  revolutions  had 
allowed  to  subsist. 

Let  us  suppose  that,  twenty  centuries  hence,  all 
knowledge  of  the  middle  ages  has  perished;  that  there 


CIlAr.  X.  THE  GEN'S  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GPS  Ç  JE.  1^3 


remain  no  documents  relating  to  what  passed  before 
the  revolution  of  1789;  and  that,  notwithstanding  this, 
an  historian  of  that  time  wishes  to  form  an  idea  of  insti¬ 
tutions  of  an  earlier  date.  The  only  documents  that  he 
would  have  at  hand  would  show  him  the  nobility  of 
the  nineteenth  century  —  that  is  to  say,  something  very 
different  from  that  of  feudalism;  but  he  would  suspect 
that  a  great  revolution  had  taken  place,  and  he  would 
rightly  conclude  that  this  institution,  like  all  the  others, 
must  have  been  modified.  This  nobility,  which  his  au¬ 
thorities  would  describe  to  him,  would  no  longer  be 
for  him  anything  but  the  shadow  or  the  enfeebled 
and  altered  image  of  another  nobility,  incomparably 
more  powerful.  Finally,  if  he  examined  with  attention 
the  slight  remains  of  ancient  monuments,  a  few  ex¬ 
pressions  preserved  in  the  language,  a  few  terms 
escaped  from,  the  law,  vague  souvenirs  or  sterile  re¬ 
grets,  he  would  perhaps  be  able  to  conjecture  some¬ 
thing  concerning  the  feudal  system,  and  would  obtain 
an  idea  of  the  institutions  of  the  middle  ages  that 
would  not  be  very  far  from  the  truth.  The  difficulty 
would  assuredly  be  great;  nor  is  it  less  for  him  who 
to-day  desires  to  understand  the  antique  gens  ;  for  he 
has  no  information  regarding  it  except  what  dates  from 
a  time  when  it  was  no  longer  anything  but  a  shadow 
of  itself. 

We  will  commence  by  analyzing  all  that  the  ancient 
writers  tell  us  of  the  gens  ;  that  is  to  say,  what  remained 
of  it  at  the  epoch  when  it  was  already  greatly  changed. 
Then,  by  the  aid  of  these  remains,  we  shall  attempt  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  veritable  system  of  the  antique 
gens. 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


134 


1.  What  Ancient  Writers  tell  us  of  the  Gens. 

If  we  open  a  Roman  history  at  the  time  of  the  Punic 
wars  we  meet  three  personages,  whose  names  are 
Claudius  Pulcher,  Claudius  Nero,  and  Claudius  Centho. 
All  three  belong  to  the  same  gens  —  the  Claudian 
gens. 

Demosthenes  in  one  of  his  orations  produces  seven 
witnesses,  who  certify  that  they  belong  to  the  same 
jth'oc,  that  of  the  Brytidæ.  What  is  remarkable  in 
this  example  is,  that  the  seven  persons  cited  as  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  same  yèvo;  are  inscribed  in  six  different 
denies.  This  shows  that  the  yéro;  did  not  correspond 
exactly  with  the  deme,  and  was  not,  like  it,  a  simple 
administrative  division.1 

Here  is  one  fact  established  :  there  were  gentes  at 
Rome  and  at  Athens.  We  might  cite  examples  rela¬ 
tive  to  many  other  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy,  and 
conclude  from  them  that,  in  all  probability,  this  in¬ 
stitution  was  universal  among  these  ancient  nations. 

Every  gens  had  a  special  worship  ;  in  Greece  the 
members  of  the  same  gens  were  recognized  “  by  the 
fact  that  they  had  performed  sacrifices  in  common  from 
a  very  early  period.”2  Plutarch  speaks  of  the  place 
where  the  Lycomedæ  sacrificed,  and  Æschines  speaks 
of  the  altar  of  the  gens  of  the  Butadæ.3 


1  Demosthenes,  in  Neær.,  71.  Plutarch,  Themist .,  1.  Æs¬ 
chines,  De  Falsa  Legal.,  147.  Bceckh,  Corp.  Insc.,  385.  Ross, 
Demi  Attici .  24.  The  gens  among  the  Greeks  is  often  called 
nàjqa.  Pindar,  passim. 

*  Ilesychius,  ytvn]rai.  Pollux,  III.  52,  Harpocration,  oçyecùrtç. 

*  Plutarch  Themist I.  Æsch.,  De  Falsa  Legal..  147. 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  13f) 


At  Rome,  too,  each  gens  had  religious  ceremonies  to 
perform  ;  the  day,  the  place,  and  the  rites  were  fixed 
by  its  particular  religion.1  When  the  capital  is  be¬ 
sieged  by  the  Gauls,  one  of  the  Fabii,  clothed  in  re¬ 
ligious  robes,  and  carrying  sacred  objects  in  his  hands, 
is  seen  to  go  out  and  cross  the  enemy’s  lines;  he  goes 
to  offer  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  his  gens,  which  is  situ¬ 
ated  on  the  Quirinal.  In  the  second  Punic  war, 
another  Fabius,  whom  they  called  the  Shield  of  Rome, 
is  making  head  against  Hannibal.  Certainly  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  to  the  republic  that  he  remains  with 
his  army;  and  yet  he  leaves  it  in  the  hands  of  the  im¬ 
prudent  Minucius:  this  is  because  the  anniversary  of 
the  sacrifice  of  his  gens  has  arrived,  and  he  must  be  at 
Rome  to  perform  the  sacred  act.2 

It  was  a  duty  to  pe/petuate  this  worship  from  genera¬ 
tion  to  generation,  and  every  man  was  required  to 
leave  sons  after  him  to  continue  it.  Claudius,  a  per¬ 
sonal  enemy  of  Cicero,  abandoned  his  gens  to  enter  a 
plebeian  family,  and  Cicero  says  to  him,  “  Why  do  you 
expose  the  religion  of  the  Claudian  gens  to  the  risk  of 
becoming  extinct  through  your  fault  ?  ” 

The  gods  of  the  gens  —  Da  y entiles  —  protected  no 
other  gens,  and  did  not  desire  to  be  invoked  by  an¬ 
other.  No  stranger  could  be  admitted  to  the  religious 
ceremonies.  It  was  believed  that  if  a  stranger  had  a 
part  of  the  victim,  or  even  if  he  merely  assisted  at  the 
sacrifice,  the  gods  of  the  gens  were  offended,  and  all 
the  members  were  guilty  of  grave  impiety. 

Just  as  every  gens  had  its  worship  and  its  religious 

1  Cicero,  De  Arusp.  Resp.,  15.  Dion.  Ilalic.,  XI.  14.  Fes- 
tus,  Propudi. 

2  Livy,  V.  40;  XXII.  18.  Yaler.  Max.,  I.  1, 11.  Polybius,  III. 
94.  Pliny,  XXXIV.  13.  Maerobius,  III.  5. 


136 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  IL 


festivals,  so  also  it  had  its  common  tomb.  We  read  in 
an  oration  of  Demosthenes,  “  This  man,  having  lost 

7  O 

his  children,  buried  them  in  the  tomb  of  his  fathers,  in 
that  tomb  that  is  common  to  all  those  of  his  gens.” 
I  he  rest  of  the  oration  shows  that  no  stranger  could  be 
buried  in  this  tomb.  In  another  discourse,  the  same 
orator  speaks  of  the  tomb  where  the  gens  of  the  Dusel- 
idæ  buried  its  members,  and  where  every  year  it  per¬ 
formed  its  funeral  sacrifices  :  “  this  burial-place  is  a 
large  field,  surrounded  with  an  enclosure,  according  to 
the  ancient  custom.”  1 

The  same  was  the  case  among  the  Romans.  Vel- 
leius  Paterculus  speaks  of  the  tomb  of  the  Quintilian 
gens,  and  Suetonius  informs  us  that  the  Claudian  gens 
had  one  on  the  slope  of  the  Capitoline  Hill. 

The  ancient  law  of  Rome  permits  the  members  of  a 
gens  to  inherit  from  each  other.  The  Twelve  Tables 
declare  that,  in  default  of  sons  and  of  agnates,  the 
gentilis  is  the  natural  heir.  According  to  this  code, 
therefore,  the  gentiles  are  nearer  akin  than  the  cog¬ 
nates;  that  is  to  say,  nearer  than  those  related  through 
females. 

Nothing  is  more  closely  united  than  the  members 
of  a  gens.  United  in  the  celebration  of  the  same  sa¬ 
cred  ceremonies,  they  mutually  aid  each  other  in  all 
the  needs  of  life.  The  entire  gens  is  responsible  for 
the  debt  of  one  of  its  members  ;  it  redeems  the  prison¬ 
er  and  pays  the  fine  of  one  condemned.  If  one  of  its 
members  becomes  a  magistrate,  it  unites  to  pay  the 
expenses  incident  to  the  magistracy.2 

The  accused  was  accompanied  to  the  tribunal  by  all 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Macart .,  79;  in  Eubttl.,  28. 

9  Livy,  V.  32.  Dion.  Halic.,  XIII.  5.  Appian,  Annib.,  28. 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  137 


the  members  of  his  gens;  this  marks  the  close  relation 
which  the  law  established  between  a  man  and  the  body 
of  which  he  formed  a  part.  For  a  man  to  plead  or 
bear  witness  against  one  of  his  own  gens  was  an  act 
contrary  to  religion.  A  certain  Claudius,  a  man  of 
some  rank,  was  a  personal  enemy  of  Appius  Claudius 
the  Decemvir;  yet  when  the  latter  was  placed  on  trial, 
and  was  menaced  with  death,  this  Claudius  appeared 
in  his  defence,  and  implored  the  people  in  his  favor,  but 
not  without  giving  them  notice  that  he  took  this  step 
“  not  on  account  of  any  affection  which  he  bore  the 
accused,  but  as  a  duty.” 

If  a  member  of  a  gens  could  not  accuse  another 
member  before  a  tribunal  of  the  city,  this  was  because 
there  was  a  tribunal  in  the  gens  itself.  Each  gens  had 
its  chief,  who  was  at  the  same  time  its  judge,  its  priest, 
and  its  military  commander.1  Every  one  knows  that 
when  the  Sabine  family  of  the  Claudii  established  itself 
at  Rome,  the  three  thousand  persons  who  composed  it 
obeyed  a  single  chief.  Later,  when  the  Fabii  took 
upon  themselves  the  whole  war  against  the  Veientes, 
we  see  that  this  gens  had  its  chief,  who  spoke  in  its 
name  before  the  senate,  and  who  led  it  against  the 
enemy.*2 

In  Greece,  too,  each  gens  had  its  chief;  the  inscrip¬ 
tions  confirm  this,  and  they  show  us  that  this  chief 
generally  bore  the  title  of  archon.3  Finally,  in  Rome, 
as  in  Greece,  the  gens  had  its  assemblies;  it  passed 
laws  which  its  members  were  bound  to  obey,  and  which 
the  city  itself  respected.4 

1  Dion.  Ilalic.,  II.  7.  *  Ibid.,  IX.  5. 

3  Bœckli,  Corp.  Inscrip. ,  897,  399.  Ross,  Demi  Attici ,  24. 

4  Livy,  VI.  20.  Suetonius,  Tiber. ,  1.  Ross,  Demi  Attici , 
24. 


138 


TUE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


Such  are  the  usages  and  laws  which  we  find  still  in 
force  at  an  epocli  when  the  gens  was  already  enfeebled 
and  almost  destroyed.  Such  are  the  remains  of  this 
ancient  institution. 

2.  An  Examination  of  certain  Opinions  that  have 
been  put  forth  to  explain  the  Roman  Gens . 

On  this  subject,  which  has  long  been  the  theme  of 
learned  controversy,  several  theories  have  been  offered. 
Some  say  that  the  gens  was  nothing  more  than  a  simi¬ 
larity  in  name  ; 1  others,  that  the  word  gens  designated 
a  sort  of  factitious  relationship.  Still  others  hold  that 
the  gens  was  merely  the  expression  of  a  relation  be¬ 
tween  a  family  which  acted  as  patrons  and  other  fami¬ 
lies  that  were  clients.  But  none  of  these  explanations 
answer  to  the  whole  series  of  facts,  laws,  and  usages 
which  we  have  just  enumerated. 

Another  opinion,  more  plausible,  is,  that  the  gens  was 
a  political  association  of  several  families  who  were  ori¬ 
ginally  strangers  to  each  other;  and  that  in  default  of 
ties  of  blood,  the  city  established  among  them  an  im¬ 
aginary  union  and  a  sort  of  religious  relationship. 

But  a  first  objection  presents  itself:  If  the  gens  is  only 
a  factitious  association,  how  are  we  to  explain  the  fact 
that  its  members  inherited  from  each  other?  Why  is  the 
gentilis  preferred  to  the  cognate?  It  has  been  seen  above 
what  the  rules  of  succession  were,  and  we  have  pointed 
out  the  close  and  necessary  relation  which  religion  had 
established  between  the  right  of  inheritance  and  mas- 

1  Two  passages  of  Cicero,  Tuscul .,  I.,  16,  and  Topica,  6,  have 
tended  to  confuse  the  question.  Cicero,  like  most  of  his  con¬ 
temporaries,  appears  not  to  have  understood  vhat  the  ancient 
gens  really  was. 


en  a  p.  x. 


THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  139 


culine  kinship.  Can  we  suppose  that  ancient  law  de¬ 
viated  so  far  from  this  principle  as  to  accord  the  right 
of  succession  to  the  gentiles  if  they  had  been  strangers 
to  each  other? 

The  best  established  and  most  prominent  character¬ 
istic  of  the  gens  is,  that,  like  the  family,  it  had  a  worship. 
Now,  if  we  inquire  what  god  each  adores,  we  find  almost 
always  that  it  is  a  deified  ancestor,  and  that  the  altar 
where  the  sacrifice  is  offered  is  a  tomb.  At  Athens  the  Eu- 
molpidæ  worshipped  Eumolpus,  the  author  of  their  race  ; 
the  Phytalidæ  adored  the  hero  Phytalus;  the  Butadæ, 
Butes;  the  Buselidæ,  Buselus;  the  Lakiadæ,  Lakios; 
the  Amynandridæ,  Cecrops.1  At  Rome  the  Claudii  are 
descended  from  a  Clausus  ;  the  Cæcilii  honored  as  chief 
of  their  race  the  hero  Cæculus  ;  the  Calpurnii,  a  Calpus  ; 
the  Julii,  a  Juins;  the  Clœlii,  a  Clœlus.2 

We  may  easily  suppose,  it  is  true,  that  many  of  these 
genealogies  were  an  afterthought;  but  we  must  admit 
that  this  sort  of  imposture  would  have  had  no  motive 
if  it  had  not  been  a  constant  usage  among  the  real  gen- 
tes  to  recognize  and  to  worship  a  common  ancestor. 
Falsehood  always  seeks  to  imitate  the  truth.  Besides, 
the  imposture  was  not  so  easy  as  it  might  seem  to  us. 
This  worship  was  not  a  vain  formality  for  parade. 
One  of  the  most  rigorous  ruies  of  the  religion  was,  that 
no  one  should  honor  as  an  ancestor  any  except  those 
from  whom  he  was  really  descended  ;  to  offer  this 
worship  to  a  stranger  was  a  grave  impiety.  If,  then, 
the  members  of  a  gens  adored  a  common  ancestor,  it 
was  because  they  really  believed  they  were  descended 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Macart .,  79.  Pausanias,  I.  37.  Inscrip¬ 
tion  of  the  Amynandridæ,  cited  by  Poss,  p.  24. 

s  Festus,  Cæculus ,  Calpurnii ,  Claslii. 


140 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


from  him.  To  counterfeit  a  tomb,  to  establish  anniver¬ 
saries  and  an  annual  worship,  would  have  been  to  carry 
falsehood  into  what  they  held  most  dear,  and  to  trifle 
with  religion.  Such  a  fiction  was  possible  in  the 
time  of  Cæsar,  when  the  old  family  religion  was  cher¬ 
ished  by  nobody.  But  if  we  go  back  to  the  time  when 
this  creed  was  in  its  vigor,  we  cannot  imagine  that  sev¬ 
eral  families,  taking  part  in  the  same  imposture,  could 
say  to  each  other,  We  will  pretend  to  have  a  common 
ancestor;  we  will  erect  him  a  tomb;  we  will  offer  him 
funeral  repasts  ;  and  our  descendants  shall  adore  him  in 
all  future  time.  Such  a  thought  could  not  have  pre¬ 
sented  itself  to  their  minds,  or  it  would  have  been 
scouted  as  an  impiety. 

In  the  difficult  problems  often  found  in  history,  it  is 
well  to  seek  from  the  terms  of  lano-uas-e  all  the  instruc- 
tion  which  they  can  afford.  An  institution  is  some¬ 
times  explained  by  the  word  that  designates  it.  Now, 
the  word  gens  means  exactly  the  same  as  the  word 
genus  ;  so  completely  alike  are  they  that  we  can  take 
the  one  for  the  other,  and  say,  indifferently,  gens  Fahia 
and  genus  Fabium ;  both  correspond  to  the  verb  gig- 
nere  and  to  the  substantive  genitor ,  precisely  as  yh:og 
corresponds  to  yewùv  and  to  yopeig,  All  these  words 
convey  the  same  idea  of  filiation.  The  Greeks  also 
designated  the  members  of  a  yèvog  by  the  word  oyoyh- 
luy.Tfç,  which  signifies  nourished  by  the  same  milk.  Let 
these  words  be  compared  with  those  which  we  are  ac¬ 
customed  to  translate  by  family  —  the  Latin  familia , 
the  Greek  ôixog.  Neither  of  these  last  has  the  sense  of 
generation  or  of  kinship.  The  true  signification  of 
familia  is  property;  it  designates  the  field,  the  house, 
money,  and  slaves;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the 
Twelve  Tables  say,  in  speaking  of  the  heir,  familiam 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  14] 


nancitor — let  him  take  the  succession.  As  to  Zmo;,  it 
is  clear  that  this  word  presents  to  the  mind  no  other  idea 
than  that  of  property  or  of  domicile.  And  yet  these  are 
the  words  that  we  habitually  translate  by  family.  Now, 
is  it  admissible  that  terms  whose  intrinsic  meaning  is  that 
of  domicile  or  property  were  often  used  to  designate  a 
family,  and  that  other  words  whose  primary  sense  is  fili¬ 
ation,  birth,  paternity,  have  never  designated  anything 
but  an  artificial  association?  Certainly  this  would  not 
be  in  conformity  with  the  logic,  so  direct  and  clear,  of  the 
ancient  languages.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the  Greeks 
and  the  Romans  attached  to  the  words  gens  and  yèvng 
the  idea  of  a  common  origin.  This  idea  might  have 
become  obscured  after  the  gens  was  modified,  but  the 
word  has  remained  to  bear  witness  of  it. 

The  theory  that  presents  the  gens  as  a  factitious 
association  has  against  it,  therefore,  1st,  the  old  legis¬ 
lation,  which  gives  the  gentiles  the  right  of  inheritance  ; 

2,  the  old  religion, which  allowed  a  common  worship  only 
where  there  was  a  common  parentage;  3d,  the  terms 
of  language,  which  attest  in  the  gens  a  common  origin. 
The  theory  has  also  this  other  defect,  that  it  supposes 
human  societies  to  have  commenced  by  a  convention 
and  an  artifice  —  a  position  which  historical  science  can¬ 
not  admit  as  true. 

3.  The  Gens  is  the  Family  still  holding  its  primitive 

Orgaviization  and  its  Unity. 

All  the  evidence  presents  us  the  gens  as  united  by 
the  tie  of  birth.  Let  us  again  consult  language:  the 
names  of  the  gentes,  in  Greece  as  well  as  in  Rome,  all 
have  the  form  which  was  used  in  the  two  languages  for 
patronymics.  Claudius  signifies  the  son  of  Clausus,  and 
Butadæ,  the  sons  of  Butes. 


142 


THE  FAMILY. 


book  n. 


Those  who  think  they  see  in  the  gens  an  artificial 
association,  set  ont  from  a  false  assumption.  They 
suppose  that  a  gens  always  consisted  of  several  families 
having  different  names,  and  they  cite  the  Cornelian 
gens,  which  did  indeed  include  Scipios,  Lentuli,  Cossi, 
and  Syllæ.  But  this  is  very  far  from  having  been 
a  general  rule.  The  Marcian  gens  appears  never  to 
have  had  more  than  a  single  line.  We  also  find  but 
one  in  the  Lucretian  gens,  and  but  one  in  the  Quintil¬ 
ian  gens,  for  a  long  time.  It  would  certainly  be  very 
difficult  to  tell  what  families  composed  the  Fabian  çens 
for  all  the  Fabii  known  in  history  belong  manifestly  to 
the  same  stock.  At  first  they  all  bear  the  same  sur¬ 
name  of  Vibulanus  ;  they  all  change  it  afterwards  for 
that  of  Ambustus,  which  they  replace  still  later  by 
Maximus  or  Dorso. 

We  know  that  it  was  customary  at  Rome  for  all 
patricians  to  have  three  names.  One  was  called,  for 
example,  Publius  Cornelius  Scipio.  It  may  be  worth 
the  while  to  inquire  which  of  these  three  names  was 
considered  as  the  true  name.  Publius  was  merely  a 
name  placed  before  —  pram  omen  ;  Scipio  was  a  name 
added  —  agnomen.  The  true  name  was  Cornelius  ;  and 
this  name  was  at  the  same  time  that  of  the  whole  gens. 
FTad  we  only  this  single  indication  regarding  the  an¬ 
cient  gens,  it  would  justify  us  in  affirming  that  there 
were  Cornelii  before  there  were  Scipios,  and  not,  as  it 
is  oiten  said,  that  the  family  of  the  Scipios  associated 
with  others  to  form  the  Cornelian  gens. 

History  teaches  us,  in  fact,  that  the  Cornelian  gens 
was  for  a  long  time  undivided,  and  that  all  the  mem¬ 
bers  alike  bore  the  surname  of  Maluginensis,  and  that  of 
Cossus.  It  was  not  till  the  time  of  the  dictator  Camillas 
that  one  of  its  branches  adopted  the  surname  of  Scipio. 


CHAP.  X.  7nE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  143 


A  litt  le  later  another  branch  took  the  surname  of  Rufus, 
which  it  replaced  afterwards  by  that  of  Sylla.  The 
Lentuli  do  not  appear  till  the  time  of  the  Samnite  wars, 
the  Cethegi  not  until  the  second  Punic  war.  It  is  the 
same  with  the  Claudian  gens.  The  Claudii  remained 
a  long  time  united  in  a  single  family,  and  all  bore  the 
surname  of  Sabinus  or  of  Regill ensis,  a  sign  of  their 
origin.  We  follow  them  for  seven  generations  without 
seeing  any  branches  formed  in  this  family,  although  it 
had  become  very  numerous.  It  was  only  in  the  eighth, 
that  is  to  say,  in  the  time  of  the  first  Punic  war,  that 
we  see  three  branches  separate,  and  adopt  three  sur¬ 
names  which  became  hereditary  with  them.  These 
were  thePulchri,  who  continued  during  two  centuries; 
the  Centhos,  who  soon  became  extinct,  and  the  Neros, 
who  continued  to  the  time  of  the  empire. 

From  all  this  it  is  clear  that  the  gens  was  not  an 
association  of  families,  but  that  it  was  the  family  itself. 
It  might  either  comprise  only  a  single  line,  or  produce 
several  branches;  it  was  always  but  one  family. 

Besides,  it  is  easy  to  account  for  the  formation  of 
the  antique  gens  and  for  its  nature,  if  wTe  but  refer  to 
the  old  belief  and  to  the  old  institutions  that  we  have 
already  described.  We  shall  see,  even,  that  the  gens 
is  derived  very  naturally  from  the  domestic  religion  and 
from  the  private  law  of  the  ancient  ages.  Indeed,  what 
did  this  primitive  religion  prescribe  ?  That  the  ances¬ 
tor,  that  is  to  say,  the  man  who  was  first  buried  in  the 
tomb,  should  be  perpetually  honored  as  a  god,  and  that 
his  descendants,  assembled  every  year  near  the  sacred 
place  where  he  reposed,  should  offer  him  the  funeral 
repast. 

This  fire  always  kept  burning,  this  tomb  always  hon¬ 
ored  with  a  worship,  were  the  centre  around  whi(h  all 


144 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  II. 


later  generations  came  to  live,  and  by  which  all  the 
branches  of  the  family,  however  numerous  they  might 
be,  remained  grouped  in  a  single  body.  What  more 
does  private  law  tell  us  of  those  ancient  ages?  While 
studying  the  nature  of  authority  in  the  ancient  family, 
we  saw  that  the  son  did  not  separate  from  the  father  ; 
while  studying  the  rules  for  the  transmission  of  the 
patrimony,  we  saw  that,  on  account  of  the  right  of  pri¬ 
mogeniture,  the  younger  brothers  did  not  separate  from 
the  oldest.  Hearth,  tomb,  patrimony,  all  these,  in  the 
beginning,  were  indivisible.  The  family,  consequently, 
Was  also  indivisible.  Time  did  not  dismember  it.  This 
indivisible  family,  which  developed  through  ages,  per¬ 
petuating  its  worship  and  its  name  from  century  to 
century,  was  really  the  antique  gens.  The  gens  was 
the  family,  but  the  family  having  preserved  the  unity 
which  its  religion  enjoined,  and  having  attained  all  the 
development  which  ancient  private  law  permitted  it  to 
attain.1 

1  We  need  not  repeat  what  we  have  already  said  of  agnation 
<B.  II.,  ch.  v).  We  can  see  that  agnatio  and  geniilitas  —  the 
relationship  of  the  gentiles — flowed  from  the  same  principles, 
and  were  relationships  of  the  same  nature.  The  passage  in  the 
law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  which  assigns  the  inheritance  to  the 
gentiles ,  in  default  of  agnati,  embarrassed  the  jurisconsults,  and 
led  to  the  opinion  that  there  was  an  essential  difference  between 
these  two  kinds  of  kinship.  But  this  difference  is  nowhere 
found.  One  was  agnatus ,  as  one  was  gentilis,  by  masculine  de¬ 
scent  and  the  religious  bond.  There  was  only  a  difference  of 
degree,  which  began  when  the  branches  of  the  same  gens  were 
separated.  The  agnatus  was  a  member  of  the  branch;  the  gen¬ 
tilis  of  the  gens .  There  was  therefore  the  same  distinction 
between  the  terms  gentilis  and  agnatus  as  between  the  words 
gens  and  familia.  Familiam  dicimus  omnium  agnatorum , 
says  Ulpian  in  the  Digest ,  L.  tit.,  16,  §  195.  One,  when  he  was 
the  agnate  of  a,  man,  was,  for  a  still  stronger  reason,  his  genti* 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  l4£) 


This  truth  admitted,  all  that  the  ancient  writers  have 
told  us  of  the  gens  becomes  clear.  The  close  unity 
which  we  have  remarked  among  its  members  is  no 
longer  surprising;  they  are  related  by  birth,  and  the 
worship  which  they  practise  in  common  is  not  a  fiction  ; 
it  comes  to  them  from  their  ancestors.  As  they  are  a 
single  family,  they  have  a  common  tomb.  For  the 
same  reason  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  declares 
them  qualified  to  inherit  each  other’s  property.  For 
the  same  reason,  too,  they  bear  the  same  name.  As  all 
had,  in  the  beginning,  a  single  undivided  patrimony,  it 
was  a  custom,  and  even  a  necessity,  that  the  entire  gens 
should  be  answerable  for  the  debt  of  one  of  its  mem¬ 
bers,  and  that  they  should  pay  the  ransom  of  the  pris¬ 
oner  and  the  fine  of  the  convict.  All  these  rules  be¬ 
came  established  of  themselves  while  the  gens  still 
retained  its  unity;  when  it  was  dismembered  they 
could  not  disappear  entirely.  Of  the  ancient  and  sa¬ 
cred  unity  of  this  family  there  remain  persistent  traces 
in  the  annual  sacrifices  which  assembled  the  scattered 
members  ;  in  the  name  that  remained  common  to  them  ; 
in  the  legislation  which  recognized  the  right  of  gentiles 
to  inherit  ;  in  their  customs  which  enjoined  them  to 
aid  each  other.9 

lis  ;  but  he  could  not  be  a  gentilis  without  being  an  agnate.  The 
law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  gave  the  inheritance,  in  default  of  ag¬ 
nates,  to  those  who  were  only  gentiles  of  the  deceased,  that 
is  to  say,  who  were  of  his  gens,  without  being  of  his  branch  or 
of  his  familia. 

2  The  use  of  patronymics  dates  from  this  high  antiquity,  and 
is  connected  with  this  old  religion.  Every  gens  transmitted  the 
name  of  the  ancestor  from  generation  to  generation  with  the 
same  care  as  it  perpetuated  its  worship.  What  the  Romans  called 
i momen  was  this  name  of  the  ancestor  which  all  the  members 
of  the  gens  bore.  A  day  came  when  each  branch,  becoming 

10  ' 


146 


THE  FAMILY 


BOOK  II. 


4.  The  Family  (  Gens )  was  at  first  the  only  Form  oj 

Society. 

What  we  have  seen  of  the  family,  its  domestic  re¬ 
ligion,  the  gods  which  it  had  created  for  itself,  the 
."aws  that  it  had  established,  the  right  of  primogeniture 
on  which  it  had  been  founded,  its  unity,  its  develop¬ 
ment  from  age  to  age  until  the  formation  of  the  gens, 
its  justice,  its  priesthood,  its  internal  government,  —  car¬ 
ries  us  forcibly,  in  thought,  towards  a  primitive  epoch, 
when  the  family  was  independent  of  all  superior  power, 
and  when  the  city  did  not  yet  exist. 

When  we  examine  the  domestic  religion,  those  gods 
who  belonged  only  to  one  family  and  exercised  theii 
providence  only  within  the  walls  of  one  house,  this 
worship  which  was  secret,  this  religion  w’hich  would 

independent  in  certain  respects,  marked  its  individuality  by 
adopting  a  surname  ( cognomen ).  Each  person  was,  moreover, 
distinguished  by  a  particular  denomination,  agnomen ,  as  Caius, 
or  Quintus.  But  the  true  name,  the  official  name,  the  sacred 
name,  was  that  of  the  gens  ;  this,  coming  from  the  first  known 
ancestor,  was  to  last  as  long  as  the  family  and  the  gods  lasted. 
It  was  the  same  in  Greece.  Every  Greek,  at  least  if  he  belonged 
to  an  ancient  and  regularly  established  family,  had,  like  the 
Roman  patrician,  three  names.  One  was  his  individual  name; 
another  was  that  of  his  father;  and  as  these  two  generally  alter¬ 
nated  with  each  other,  they  were,  together,  equivalent  to  the 
hereditary  cognomen ,  which  at  Rome  designated  a  branch  of  the 
gens.  Lastly,  the  third  name  was  that  of  the  entire  gens.  Ex¬ 
amples  :  MiXtkxSijç  Ki/ntovoç  Jaxiàihjç,  and  in  the  following  gen¬ 
eration,  TCtfiMv  Miknûôov  The  Lakiadæ  formed  a 

ytvog ,  as  the  Cornelii  formed  a  gens.  It  was  the  same  with  the 
Butadæ,  the  Phytalidæ,  &c-  Pindar  never  extols  his  heroes 
without  recalling  the  name  of  their  y*voç.  This  name,  in  Greek, 
usually  ended  in  lôtjç  or  aôijç,  and  thus  had  an  adjective  form,  just 
as  the  name  of  the  gens  among  tat.  Romans  invariably  ended  in 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  A1  T  OME  AND  IN  GREECE.  147 


not  be  propagated,  this  antique  morality  which  pre¬ 
scribed  the  isolation  of  families,  — it  is  clear  that  beliefs 
of  this  nature  could  not  have  taken  root  in  the  minds 
of  men,  except  in  an  age  when  larger  societies  were 
not  yet  formed.  If  the  religious  sentiment  was  satis¬ 
fied  with  so  narrow  a  conception  of  the  divine,  it  was 
because  human  associations  were  then  narrow  in  pro¬ 
portion.  The  time  when  men  believed  only  in  the 
domestic  gods  was  the  time  when  there  existed  only 
families.  It  is  quite  true  that  this  belief  might  have 
subsisted  afterwards,  and  even  for  a  long  time,  when 
cities  and  nations  existed.  Man  does  not  easily  free 
himself  from  opinions  that  have  once  exercised  a  strong 
influence  over  him.  This  belief  might  endure,  there¬ 
fore.  even  when  it  was  in  disaccord  with  the  social 
state.  What  is  there,  indeed,  more  contradictory  than 
to  live  in  civil  society  and  to  have  particular  gods  in 

ivs.  This  was  none  the  less  the  true  name.  In  daily  life  a  man 
might  be  called  by  his  individual  surname;  but  in  the  official 
language  of  politics  or  religion,  his  complete  name,  and  above 
all  the  name  of  the  ytroç,  was  required.  (Later  the  democracy 
substituted  the  name  of  the  deme  for  that  ot  the  ytvoç.)  The 
history  of  names  followed  a  different  course  in  ancient  from 
what  it  has  followed  in  modern  times.  In  the  middle  ages, 
until  the  twelfth  century,  the  true  name  was  the  individual  or 
baptismal  name.  Patronymics  came  quite  late,  as  names  of 
estates  or  surnames.  It  was  just  the  reverse  among  the  an¬ 
cients  ;  and  this  difference  is  due  to  the  difference  of  the  two 
religions.  Por  the  old  domestic  religion,  the  family  was  the 
true  body,  of  which  the  individual  was  but  an  inseparable  mem¬ 
ber;  the  patronymic  was,  therefore,  the  first  name  in  date  and 
in  importance.  Tiie  new  religion,  on  the  contrary,  recognized 
in  the  individual  complete  liberty  and  entire  personal  indepen¬ 
dence,  and  was  not  in  the  least  opposed  to  separating  him  from 
the  family.  Baptismal  names  were,  therefore,  the  first,  and  for 
a  long  time  the  only,  names. 


148 


THE  FAMILY. 


book  n. 


each  family  ?  But  it  is  clear  that  this  contradiction 
did  not  always  exist,  and  that  at  the  epoch  when  this 
belief  was  established  in  the  mind,  and  became  power¬ 
ful  enough  to  form  a  religion,  it  corresponded  exactly 
Arith  the  social  state  ot  man.  Now,  the  only  social 
state  that  is  in  accord  with  such  a  belief  is  that  in 
which  the  family  lives  independent  and  isolated. 

In  such  a  state  the  whole  Aryan  race  appears  to 
have  lived  for  a  long  time.  The  hymns  of  the  Vedas 
confirm  this  for  the  branch  from  which  the  Hindus  are 
descended,  and  the  old  beliefs  and  the  old  private  laws 
attest  it  for  those  who  finally  became  Greeks  and 
Romans. 

If  we  compare  the  political  institutions  of  the  Aryas 
of  the  East  with  those  of  the  Aryas  of  the  West,  we 
find  hardly  any  analogy  between  them.  If,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  we  compare  the  domestic  institutions  of  these 
various  nations,  we  perceive  that  the  family  was  con¬ 
stituted  upon  the  same  principles  in  Greece  and  in 
India  ;  besides,  these  principles  were,  as  we  have  al¬ 
ready  shown,  of  so  singular  a  nature  that  we  cannot  sup¬ 
pose  this  resemblance  to  have  been  the  work  of  chance; 
Finally,  not  only  do  these  institutions  offer  an  evident 
analogy,  but  even  the  words  that  designate  them  are 
often  the  same  in  the  different  languages  which  this 
race  has  spoken  from  the  Ganges  to  the  Tiber.  From 
this  fact  we  may  draw  a  double  conclusion  :  one  is, 
that  the  origin  of  domestic  institutions  among  the  na¬ 
tions  of  this  race  is  anterior  to  the  period  when  its 
different  branches  separated  ;  the  other  is,  that  the 
origin  of  political  institutions  is,  on  the  contrary,  later 
than  this  separation.  The  first  were  fixed  from  the 
time  when  the  race  still  lived  in  its  ancient  cradle  of 
Central  Asia.  The  second  were  formed  by  degrees  in 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  149 


tbe  different  countries  to  which  its  migrations  con¬ 
ducted.  We  can  catch  a  glimpse  therefore  of  a  long 
period,  during  which  men  knew  no  other  form  of  so¬ 
ciety  than  the  family.  Then  arose  the  domestic  reli¬ 
gion,  which  could  not  have  taken  root  in  a  society 
otherwise  constituted,  and  which  must  long  have  been 
an  obstacle  to  social  development.  Then  also  was 
established  ancient  private  law,  which  was  found  later 
to  be  in  disaccord  with  the  interests  of  a  more  extended 
social  organization,  but  which  was  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  state  of  society  in  which  it  arose. 

Let  us  place  ourselves,  in  thought,  therefore,  in  the 
midst  of  those  ancient  generations  whose  traces  have  not 
been  entirely  effaced,  and  who  delegated  their  beliefs 
and  their  laws  to  subsequent  ages.  Each  family  has 
its  religion,  its  gods,  its  priesthood.  Religious  isolation 
is  a  law  with  it;  its  ceremonies  are  secret.  In  death 
3ven,  or  in  the  existence  that  follows  it,  families  do  not 
mingle;  each  one  continues  to  live  apart  in  the  tomb, 
from  which  the  stranger  is  excluded.  Every  family 
has  also  its  property,  that  is  to  say,  its  lot  of  land, 
which  is  inseparably  attached  to  it  by  its  religion  ;  its 
gods —  Termini  —  guard  the  enclosure,  and  its  Manes 
keep  it  in  their  care.  Isolation  of  property  is  so  obli¬ 
gatory  that  two  domains  cannot  be  contiguous,  but  a 
band  of  soil  must  be  left  between  them,  which  must  be 
neutral  ground,  and  must  remain  inviolable.  Finally, 
every  family  has  its  chief,  as  a  nation  would  have  its 
king.  It  has  its  laws,  which,  doubtless,  are  unwritten, 
but  which  religious  faith  engraves  in  the  heart  of  every 
man.  It  has  its  court  of  justice,  above  which  there  is 
no  other  that  one  can  appeal  to.  Whatever  man  really 
needs  for  his  material  or  moral  life  the  family  possesses 
within  itself.  It  needs  nothing  from  without;  it  is  an 
organized  state,  a  society  that  suffices  for  itself. 


150 


THE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  JT. 


But  th.s  family  of  the  ancient  ages  is  not  reduced  to 
the  proportions  of  the  modern  family.  In  larger  socie¬ 
ties  the  family  separates  and  decreases.  But  in  the 
absence  of  every  other  social  organization,  it  extends, 
develops,  and  ramifies  without  becoming  divided. 
Several  younger  branches  remain  grouped  around  an 
older  one,  near  the  one  sacred  fire  and  the  common 
tomb. 

Still  another  element  entered  into  the  composition  of 
this  antique  family.  The  reciprocal  need  which  the 
poor  has  of  the  rich,  and  the  rich  has  of  the  poor,  makes 
servants.  But  in  this  sort  of  patriarchal  regime  ser¬ 
vant  and  slave  were  one.  We  can  see,  indeed,  that 
the  principle  of  a  free  and  voluntary  service,  ceasing  at 
the  will  of  the  servant,  would  ill  accord  with  a  social 
state  in  which  a  family  lived  isolated.  Besides,  the 
domestic  religion  did  not  permit  strangers  to  be  ad¬ 
mitted  into  a  family.  By  some  means,  then,  the  ser¬ 
vant  must  become  a  member  and  an  integrant  part  of 
the  family.  This  was  effected  by  a  sort  of  initiation 
of  the  new  comer  into  the  domestic  worship. 

A  curious  usage,  that  subsisted  for  a  long  time  in 
Athenian  houses,  shows  us  how  the  slave  entered  the 
family.  They  made  him  approach  the  fire,  placed  him 
in  the  presence  of  the  domestic  divinity,  and  poured 
lustral  water  upon  his  head.  He  then  shared  with  the 
family  some  cakes  and  fruit.1  This  ceremony  bore  a 
certain  analogy  to  those  of  marriage  and  adoption. 
It  doubtless  signified  that  the  new  comer,  a  stranger 
the  day  before,  should  henceforth  be  a  member  of  the 
family,  and  share  in  its  religion.  And  thus  the  slave 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Stephanum,  I.  74.  Aristophanes,  Pluius , 
7fi8.  These  two  writers  clearly  indicate  a  ceremony,  but  do  not 
describe  it.  The  scholiast  of  Aristophanes  adds  a  few  details. 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  AT  ROME  AND  IN  GREECE.  151 


joined  in  the  prayers,  and  took  part  in  the  festivals.1 2 * * * 
The  fire  protected  him  ;  the  religion  of  the  Lares  be* 
longed  to  him  as  well  as  to  his  master.  This  is  why 
the  slave  was  buried  in  the  burial-place  of  the  family.8 

But  by  the  very  act  of  acquiring  this  worship,  and 
the  right  to  pray,  he  lost  his  liberty.  Religion  was  a 
chain  that  held  him.  He  was  bound  to  the  family  for 
his  whole  life  and  after  his  death. 

His  master  could  raise  him  from  his  base  servitude, 
and  treat  him  as  a  free  man.  But  the  servant  did  not 
on  this  account  quit  the  family.  As  he  was  bound  to 
it  by  his  worship,  he  could  not,  without  impiety,  sep¬ 
arate  from  it.  Under  the  name  of  freedman ,  or  that 
of  client ,  he  continued  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the 
chief  or  patron,  to  be  under  obligations  to  him.  He 
did  not  marry  without  the  consent  of  the  master,  and 
his  children  continued  to  obey  this  master. 

There  was  thus  formed  in  the  midst  of  the  great 

familv  a  certain  number  of  small  families  of  clients  and 
•» 

subordinates.  The  Romans  attributed  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  clientship  to  Romulus,  as  if  an  institution  of 
this  nature  could  have  been  the  work  of  a  man.  Client- 
ship  is  older  than  Romulus.  Besides,  it  has  existed 
in  other  countries,  in  Greece  as  well  as  in  all  Italy. 
It  was  not  the  cities  that  established  and  regulated  it; 
they,  on  the  contrary,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  weak¬ 
ened  and  destroyed  it  by  degrees.  Clientship  is  an 
institution  of  the  domestic  law,  and  existed  in  families 
before  there  were  cities. 

1  Ferias  in  famulis  habento,  Cicero,  De  Legib.  II.  8;  II.  12. 

2  Quum  dominis ,  turn  famulis  religio  Larum.  Cicero,  De 

Legib. ,  II.  11.  Comp.  Æsch.,  Agam .,  1035-1038.  The  slave 

could  even  perforin  a  religious  act  in  the  name  of  his  master. 

Cato,  De  Re  Rust.,  83. 


152 


rHE  FAMILY. 


BOOK  IL 


We  ire  not  to  judge  of  the  clientship  of  earlier  nges 
from  the  clients  that  we  see  in  Horace’s  time.  The 
client,  it  is  clear,  was  for  a  long  time  a  servant  attached 
to  a  patron.  But  there  was  then  something  to  give 
him  dignity;  he  had  a  part  in  the  worship,  and  was 
associated  in  the  religion  of  the  family.  He  had  the 
same  sacred  fire,  the  same  festivals,  the  same  sacra  as 
his  patron.  At  Rome,  in  sign  of  this  religious  com¬ 
munity,  he  took  the  name  of  the  family.  He  was  con¬ 
sidered  as  a  member  of  it  by  adoption.  Hence  the 
close  bond  and  reciprocity  of  duties  between  the  patron 
and  the  client.  Listen  to  the  old  Roman  law  :  “  If  a 
patron  has  done  his  client  wrong,  let  him  be  accursed, 
sacer  esto ,  —  let  him  die.”  The  patron  was  obliged 
to  protect  his  client  by  all  the  means  and  with  all 
the  power  of  which  he  was  master  ;  by  his  prayers  as 
a  priest,  by  his  lance  as  a  warrior,  by  his  law  as  a 
judge.  Later,  when  the  client  was  called  before  the 
city  tribunal,  it  was  the  patron’s  duty  to  defend  him. 
It  was  his  duty  even  to  reveal  to  him  the  mysterious 
formulas  of  the  law  that  would  enable  him  to  gain  his 
cause.  One  might  testify  in  court  against  a  cognate, 
but  not  against  a  client  ;  and  men  continued  long  to 
consider  their  duties  towards  clients  as  far  above  those 
towards  cognates.1  Why?  Because  a  cognate,  con¬ 
nected  solely  through  women,  was  not  a  relative,  and 
had  no  part  in  the  family  religion.  The  client,  on  the 
contrary,  had  a  community  of  worship  ;  he  had,  in¬ 
ferior  though  he  was,  a  real  relationship,  which  con¬ 
sisted,  according  to  the  expression  of  Plato,  in  adoring 
the  same  domestic  gods. 

Clientship  was  a  sacred  bond  which  religion  had 
formed,  and  which  nothing  could  break.  Once  the 

1  Cato,  in  Aulus  Gellius,  Y.  8  ;  XXI.  1. 


CHAP.  X.  THE  GENS  AT  ROM*  AND  IN  GREECE.  153 


client  of  a  family,  one  could  never  be  separated  from 
it.  ClientsJvp  was  even  hereditary. 

From  all  this  we  see  that  the  family,  in  the  earliest 
times,  with  its  oldest  branch  and  its  younger  branches, 
its  servants  and  its  clients,  might  comprise  a  very 
numerous  body  of  men.  A  family  that  by  its  religion 
maintained  its  unity,  by  its  private  law  rendered  itself 
indivisible,  and  through  the  laws  of  clientship  retained 
its  servants,  came  to  form,  in  the  course  of  time,  a  very 
extensive  organization,  having  its  hereditary  chief. 
The  Aryan  race  appears  to  have  been  composed  of  an 
indefinite  number  of  societies  of  this  nature,  during  a 
long  succession  of  ages.  These  thousands  of  little 
groups  lived  isolated,  having  little  to  do  with  each 
other,  having  no  need  of  one  another,  united  by  no 
boni  religious  or  political,  having  each  its  domain, 
each  its  internal  government,  each  its  god®. 


BOOK  THIRD. 


THE  CITY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

The  Phratry  and  the  Cury.  The  Tribe. 

As  yet  we  have  given  no  dates,  nor  can  we  now.  In 
the  history  of  these  antique  societies  the  epochs  are 
more  easily  marked  by  the  succession  of  ideas  and  of 
institutions  than  by  that  of  years. 

The  study  of  the  ancient  rules  of  private  law  has 
enabled  us  to  obtain  a  glimpse,  beyond  the  times  that 
are  called  historic,  of  a  succession  of  centuries  during 
which  the  family  was  the  sole  form  of  society.  This 
family  might  then  contain  within  its  wride  compass 
several  thousand  human  beings.  But  in  these  limits 
human  association  was  yet  too  narrow  ;  too  narrow  for 
material  needs,  since  this  family  hardly  sufficed  for  all 
the  chances  of  life;  too  narrow  for  the  moral  needs  of 
our  nature,  for  we  have  seen  how  incomplete  was  the 
knowledge  of  the  divine,  and  how  insufficient  wras  the 
morality  of  this  little  world. 

The  smallness  of  this  primitive  society  corresponded 
well  with  the  narrowness  of  the  idea  then  entertained 
of  the  divinity.  Every  family  had  its  gods,  and  men 
neither  conceived  of  nor  adored  any  save  the  domestic 

154 


CHAP.  I. 


ME  PHKATKY  AND  TI1E  CUKY. 


divinities.  But  he  could  not  have  contented  himself 
long  with  these  gods  so  much  below  what  his  intelli¬ 
gence  might  attain.  If  many  centuries  were  required 
for  him  to  arrive  at  the  idea  of  God  as  a  being  unique, 
incomparable,  infinite,  he  must  at  any  rate  have  insen¬ 
sibly  approached  this  ideal,  by  enlarging  his  conception 
from  age  to  age,  and  by  extending  little  by  little  the 
horizon  whose  line  separated  for  him  the  divine  Being 
from  the  things  of  this  world. 

The  religious  idea  and  human  society  went  on,  there¬ 
fore,  expanding  at  the  same  time. 

The  domestic  religion  forbade  two  families  to  mingle 
and  unite;  but  it  was  possible  for  several  families, 
without  sacrificing  anything  of  their  special  religions, 
to  join,  at  least,  for  the  celebration  of  another  worship 
which  rnisdit  have  been  common  to  all  of  them. 

O 

this  is  what  happened.  A  certain  number  of  families 
formed  a  group,  called,  in  the  Greek  language,  a  phra- 
tria,  in  the  Latin,  a  curia.1  Did  there  exist  the  tie  of 
birth  between  the  families  of  the  same  group?  This 
cannot  be  affirmed.  It  is  clear,  however,  that  this  new 
association  was  not  formed  without  a  certain  enlarge¬ 
ment  of  religious  ideas.  Even  at  the  moment  when 
they  united,  these  families  conceived  the  idea  of  a 
divinity  superior  to  that  of  the  household,  one  who  was 
common  to  all,  and  who  watched  over  the  entire  group. 
They  raised  an  altar  to  him,  lighted  a  sacred  fire,  and 
founded  a  worship. 

There  was  no  cury  or  phratry  that  had  not  its  altar 

1  Homer,  Iliad ,  II.  362.  Demosthenep,  in  Macart.  Isæus, 
III.  37;  VI.  10;  IX.  33.  Phratries  at  Thebes,  Pindar,  Isthm ., 
VII.  18,  and  Scholiast.  Phratria  and  curia  are  two  terms  tha.* 
were  translated  the  one  by  the  other.  Dion,  of  Halic.,  II.  8*»* 
Dion  Cassius,  fr.  14. 


156 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


and  its  protecting  god.  The  religious  act  here  was  of 
the  same  nature  as  in  the  family.  It  consisted  essen¬ 
tially  of  a  repast,  partaken  of  in  common  ;  the  nourish¬ 
ment  had  been  prepared  upon  the  altar  itself,  and  was 
consequently  sacred  ;  while  eating  it,  the  worshippers 
recited  prayers;  the  divinity  was  present,  and  received 
his  part  of  the  food  and  drink. 

These  religious  repasts  of  the  cury  lasted  a  long  time 
at  Rome  ;  Cicero  mentions  them,  and  Ovid  describes 
them.1 2  In  the  time  of  Augustus  they  had  still  pre¬ 
served  all  their  antique  forms.  “I  have  seen,  in  those 
sacred  dwellings,”  says  a  historian  ol  this  epoch,  “  the 
repast  displayed  before  the  god  ;  the  tables  were  of 
wood,  according  to  ancestral  usage,  and  the  dishes  were 
of  earthen  ware.  The  food  was  loaves,  cakes  ot  fine 
flour,  and  fruits.  I  saw  the  libations  poured  out;  they 
did  not  fall  from  gold  or  silver  cups,  but  from  vessels 
of  clay,  and  I  admired  the  men  of  our  day  who  remain 
so  faithful  to  the  rites  and  customs  of  their  fathers.”  * 
At  Athens  these  repasts  took  place  during  the  festival 
called  Apaturia .3 

There  were  usages  remaining  in  the  latest  period  of 
Greek  history  which  throw  some  light  upon  the  nature 
of  the  ancient  phratry.  Thus  we  see  that  in  the  time 

1  Cicero,  De  Orat.,  I.  7.  Ovid,  Fast.,  VI.  305.  Dionysius, 
II.  65. 

2  Dionysius,  II.  23.  And  yet  some  changes  had  been  intro¬ 
duced.  The  feasts  of  the  cury  had  become  a  vain  formality. 
The  members  of  the  cury  willingly  neglected  them,  and  the. 
cutcOm  was  introduced  of  replacing  the  common  meal  by  a  dis- 
trituvion  of  victuals  and  money.  Plautus,  Aulularia ,  V.  69 
and  137. 

3  Aristophanes,  Acha^n.,  146.  Athenæus,  IV.  p.  171.  Suidae 

AnotT9v^iv-. 


CHAP.  I.  THE  PHRATRY  AND  THE  CURY.  157 

of  Demosthenes,,  to  be  a  member  of  a  phratry,  one  must 
have  been  born  of  a  legitimate  marriage  in  one  of  the 
families  that  composed  it  ;  for  the  religion  of  the  phra¬ 
try,  like  that  of  the  family,  was  transmitted  only  by 
blood.  The  young  Athenian  was  presented  to  the 
phratry  by  his  father,  who  swore  that  this  was  his  son. 
The  admission  took  place  with  a  religious  ceremony 
The  phratry  sacrificed  a  victim,  and  cooked  the  flesh 
upon  the  altar.  All  the  members  were  present.  If 
they  refused  to  admit  the  new  comer,  as  they  had  a 
right  to  do,  if  they  doubted  the  legitimacy  of  his  birth, 
they  took  away  the  flesh  from  the  altar.  If  they  did 
not  do  this,  if,  after  cooking,  they  shared  with  the 
young  man  the  flesh  of  the  victim,  then  he  was  admitted, 
and  became  a  member  of  the  association.1  The  ex¬ 
planation  of  these  practices  is,  that  the  ancients  believed 
any  nourishment  prepared  upon  an  altar,  and  shared 
between  several  persons,  established  among  them  an 
indissoluble  bond  and  a  sacred  union  that  ceased  only 
with  life. 

Every  phratry  or  cury  had  a  chief,  a  curion,  or  phra- 
triarch,  whose  principal  function  was  to  preside  at  the 
sacrifices.2  Perhaps  his  attributes  were  at  first  more 
extensive.  The  phratry  had  its  assemblies  and  its  tri¬ 
bunal,  and  could  pass  decrees.  In  it,  as  well  as  in  the 
family,  there  were  a  god,  a  worship,  a  priesthood,  a  legal 
tribunal,  and  a  government.  It  was  a  small  society 
that  was  modelled  exactly  upon  the  family. 

The  association  naturally  continued  to  increase,  and 
after  the  same  fashion;  several  phratries,  or  curies, 
were  grouped  together,  and  formed  a  tribe. 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul.  ;  in  Macart.  Isæus,  VIII.  18. 

*  Dionysius,  II.  64.  Yarro,  Y.  83.  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul., 


23. 


158 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


This  new  jircle  also  had  its  religion  ;  in  each  tribe 
there  were  an  altar  and  a  protecting  divinity. 

The  god  of  the  tribe  was  generally  of  the  same 
nature  as  that  of  the  phratry,  or  that  of  the  family.  It 
was  a  man  deified,  a  hero.  From  him  the  tribe  took 
its  name.  The  Greeks  called  him  the  eponymous 
hero.  He  had  his  annual  festal  day.  The  principal 
part  of  the  religions  ceremony  was  a  repast,  of  which 
the  entire  tribe  partook.1 

The  tribe,  like  the  phratry,  held  assemblies  and 
passed  decrees,  to  which  all  the  members  were  obliged 
,o  submit.  It  had  a  chief,  tribunus ,  q>vXn6uade tic.2  From 
what  remains  to  us  of  the  tribe  we  see  that,  originally, 
it  was  constituted  to  be  an  independent  society,  and  as 
if  there  had  been  no  other  social  powrer  above  it. 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Theocrinem.  Æschines,  III.  27.  Isæus, 
VII.  36.  Pausanias,  I.  38.  Schol.,  in  Demosih.,  702.  In  the 
history  of  the  ancients  a  distinction  must  be  made  between  the 
religious  tribes  and  the  local  tribes.  We  speak  here  only  of 
the  first  :  the  second  came  long  afterwards.  There  were  tribes 
everywhere  in  Greece.  Iliad ,  II.  362,  668  ;  Odyssey,  XIX.  177  ; 
Herodotus,  IV.  161. 

2  Æschines,  III.  30,  31.  Aristotle,  Frag  ,  cited  by  Photius, 
v.  NavrçaQia.  Pollux,  VIII.  111.  Boeckh,  Oorp.  Inscr.,  82,  85, 
108.  Few  traces  remain  of  the  political  and  religious  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  three  primitive  tribes  of  Rome.  These  tribes  were 
t-oo  considerable  bodies  for  the  city  not  to  attempt  to  weaken 
them  and  take  away  their  independence.  The  plebeian!*,  more¬ 
over,  labored  to  abolish  them. 


s 


O  HAP.  II. 


NEW  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 


159 


CHAPTER  II. 

Hew  Religious  Beliefs. 

1.  The  Gods  of  Physical  Nature . 

Before  passing  from  the  formation  of  tribes  to  the 
establishment  of  cities,  we  must  mention  an  important 
element  in  the  intellectual  life  of  those  ancient  peoples. 

When  we  sought  the  most  ancient  beliefs  of  these 
men,  we  found  a  religion  which  had  their  dead  ancestors 
for  its  object,  and  for  its  principal  symbol  the  sacred  fire. 
It  was  this  religion  that  founded  the  family  and  estab¬ 
lished  the  first  laws.  But  this  race  has  also  had  in  all 
its  branches  another  religion  —  the  one  whose  principal 
figures  were  Zeus,  Here,  Athene,  Juno,  that  of  the 
Hellenic  Olympus,  and  of  the  Roman  Capitol. 

Of  these  two  religions,  the  first  found  its  gods  in 
the  human  soul  ;  the  second  took  them  from  physical 
nature.  As  the  sentiment  of  living  power,  and  of  con¬ 
science,  which  he  felt  in  himself,  inspired  man  with  the 
first  idea  of  the  divine,  so  the  view  of  this  immensity, 
which  surrounded  and  overwhelmed  him,  traced  out  for 
his  religious  sentiment  another  course. 

Man,  in  the  early  ages,  was  continually  in  the  pres¬ 
ence  of  nature;  the  habits  of  civilized  life  did  not  yet 
draw  a  line  between  it  and  him.  His  sight  was  charmed 
by  its  beauties,  or  dazzled  by  its  grandeur.  He  en¬ 
joyed  the  light,  he  was  terrified  by  the  night  ;  and  wher 
he  saw  the  “holy  light  of  heaven”  return,  he  experi¬ 
enced  a  feeling  of  thankfulness.  His  life  was  in  the 
hands  of  nature;  he  looked  for  the  beneficent  cloud  on 
which  his  harvest  depended  ;  he  feared  the  storm  which 


160 


THE  CITY. 


BOOR  III 


might  destroy  the  labor  and  hope  of  all  the  year.  At 
every  moment  he  felt  his  own  feebleness  and  the 
incomparable  power  of  what  surrounded  him.  He  ex¬ 
perienced  perpetually  a  mingled  feeling  of  veneration, 
love,  and  terror  for  this  power  of  nature. 

This  sentiment  did  not  conduct  him  at  once  to  the 
conception  of  an  only  God  ruling  the  universe  ;  for  as 
yet  he  had  no  idea  of  the  universe.  He  knew  not  that 
the  earth,  the  sun,  and  the  stars  are  parts  of  one  same 
body;  the  thought  did  not  occur  to  him  that  they 
might  all  be  ruled  by  the  same  being.  On  first  looking 
upon  the  external  world,  man  pictured  it  to  himself  as 
a  sort  of  confused  republic,  where  rival  forces  made 
war  upon  each  other.  As  he  judged  external  objects 
from  himself,  and  felt  in  himself  a  free  person,  he  saw 
also  in  every  part  of  creation,  in  the  soil,  in  the  tree,  in 
the  cloud,  in  the  water  of  the  river,  in  the  sun,  so  many 
persons  like  himself.  He  endued  them  with  thought, 
volition,  and  choice  of  acts.  As  he  thought  them  pow¬ 
erful,  and  was  subject  to  their  empire,  he  avowed  his 
dependence  ;  he  invoked  them,  and  adored  them  ;  he 
made  gods  of  them. 

dims  in  this  race  the  religious  idea  presented  itself 
under  two  different  forms.  On  the  one  hand,  man 
attached  the  divine  attribute  to  the  invisible  principle, 
to  the  intelligence,  to  what  he  perceived  of  the  soul,  to 
what  of  the  sacred  he  felt  in  himself.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  applied  his  ideas  of  the  divine  to  the  external 
object  which  he  saw,  which  he  loved  or  feared;  to 
physical  agents  that  were  the  masters  of  his  happiness 
and  of  his  life. 

These  two  orders  of  belief  laid  the  foundation  of  two 
religions  that  lasted  as  long  as  Greek  and  Roman 
society.  They  did  not  make  war  upon  each  other; 


CHAI»,  n. 


NEW  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 


161 


they  even  lived  on  very  good  terms,  and  shared  the 
empire  over  man  ;  but  they  never  became  confounded. 
Their  dogmas  were  always  entirely  distinct,  often  con¬ 
tradictory;  and  their  ceremonies  and  practices  were 
absolutely  different.  The  worship  of  the  gods  of  Olym¬ 
pus  and  that  of  heroes  and  manes  never  had  anything 
common  between  them.  Which  of  these  two  religions 
was  the  earlier  in  date  no  one  can  tell.  It  is  certain, 
however, that  one  —  that  of  the  dead  —  having  been  fixed 
at  a  very  early  epoch,  always  remained  unchangeable 
in  its  practices,  while  its  dogmas  faded  away  little  by 
little;  the  other  —  that  of  physical  nature  —  was  more 
progressive,  and  developed  freely  from  age  to  age,  mod¬ 
ifying  its  legends  and  doctrines  by  degrees,  and  con¬ 
tinually  augmenting  its  authority  over  men. 

2.  Relation  of  this  Religion  to  the  Development 

of  Human  Society. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  the  first  rudiments  of  this 
religion  of  nature  are  very  ancient,  though  not  so  old, 
perhaps,  as  the  worship  of  ancestors.  But  as  it  corre¬ 
sponded  with  more  general  and  higher  conceptions,  it 
required  more  time  to  become  fixed  into  a  precise  doc¬ 
trine.1  It  is  quite  certain  that  it  was  not  brought  into 
the  world  in  a  day,  and  that  it  did  not  spring  in  full 
perfection  from  the  brain  of  man.  We  find  at  the 

1  Need  we  recall  all  the  Greek  and  Italian  traditions  that 
showed  the  religion  of  Jupiter  to  be  a  young  and  relatively  re¬ 
cent  religion?  Greece  and  Italy  had  preserved  the  recollection 
of  a  time  when  social  organizations  already  existed,  and  when 
this  religion  was  not  yet  known.  Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  289;  Virg., 
Georg.,  I.  126.  Æsch.,  Eumen.  Pausanias,  VIII.  8.  It 
appears  that  among  the  Hindus  the  Fitris  were  anterior  to  the 
Deras. 


11 


162 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


origin  of  tliis  religion  neither  a  prophet  nor  a  body  of 
priests.  It  grew  up  in  different  minds  by  an  effort  of 
their  natural  powers.  Each  man  created  it  for  himself 
in  his  own  fashion.  Among  all  these  gods,  sprung  from 
different  minds,  there  were  resemblances,  because  ideas 
were  formed  in  the  minds  of  men  after  a  nearly  uni¬ 
form  manner.  I3ut  there  was  also  a  great  variety, 
because  each  mind  was  the  author  of  its  own  gods. 
Hence  it  was  that  for  a  long  time  this  religion  was  con¬ 
fused,  and  that  its  gods  were  innumerable. 

Still  the  elements  which  could  be  deified  were  not 
very  numerous.  The  sun  which  gives  fecundity,  the 
earth  which  nourishes,  the  clouds,  by  turns  beneficent 
and  destructive  —  such  were  the  different  powers  of 
which  they  could  make  gods.  But  from  each  one  of  these 
elements  thousands  of  gods  were  created  ;  because  the 
same  physical  agent,  viewed  under  different  aspects, 
received  from  men  different  names.  The  sun,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  was  called  in  one  place  Hercules  (the  glorious)  ; 
in  another,  Phoebus  (the  shining)  ;  and  still  again  Apollo 
(he  who  drives  away  night  or  evil)  ;  one  called  him 
Hyperion  (the  elevated  Being)  ;  another,  Alexicacos 
(the  beneficent)  ;  and  in  the  course  of  time  groups  of 
men,  who  had  given  these  various  names  to  the  brilliant 
luminary,  no  longer  saw  that  they  had  the  same  god. 

Indeed,  each  man  adored  but  a  very  small  number 
of  divinities  ;  but  the  gods  of  one  were  not  those  of 
another.  The  names,  it  is  true,  might  resemble  each 
other  ;  many  men  might  separately  have  given  their  god 
the  name  of  Apollo,  or  of  Hercules  ;  these  words  belonged 
to  the  common  language,  and  were  merely  adjectives, 
and  designated  the  divine  Being  by  one  or  another  of 
his  most  prominent  attributes.  But  under  this  same 
name  the  different  groups  of  men  could  not  believe  that 


CHAP,  n 


NEW  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 


163 


there  was  but  one  god.  They  counted  thousands  of 
different  Jupiters;  they  had  a  multitude  of  Minervas, 
Dianas,  and  Junos,  who  resembled  each  other  very  lit¬ 
tle.  Each  of  these  conceptions  was  formed  by  the  free 
operation  of  each  mind,  and  being  in  some  sort  its 
property,  it  happened  that  these  gods  were  for  a  long 
time  independent  of  each  other,  and  that  each  one  of 
them  had  his  particular  legend  and  his  worship.1 

A s  the  first  appearance  of  these  beliefs  was  at  a  time 
when  men  still  lived  under  family  government,  these 
new  goda  had  at  first,  like  the  demons,  the  heroes,  and 
the  Lares,  the  character  of  domestic  divinities.  Each 
family  made  gods  for  itself,  and  each  kept  them  for 
itself,  as  protectors,  whose  good  offices  it  did  not  wish 
to  share  with  strangers.  This  thought  appears  fre¬ 
quently  in  the  hymns  of  the  Vedas;  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  it  was  the  same  in  the  minds  of  the  Aryas 
of  the  West;  for  there  are  visible  traces  of  it  in  their 
religion.  As  soon  as  a  family,  by  personifying  a  phys¬ 
ical  agent,  had  created  a  god,  it  associated  him  with  its 
sacred  fire,  counted  him  among  its  Penates,  and  added  a 
few  words  for  him  in  its  formula  of  prayer.  This  ex¬ 
plains  why  we  often  meet  among  the  ancients  with 
expressions  like  this  :  The  gods  who  sit  near  my  hearth  ; 
the  Jupiter  of  my  hearth;  the  Apollo  of  my  fathers.* 
UI  conjure  you,”  said  Tecmessa  to  Ajax,  “in  the  name 

1  The  same  name  often  conceals  very  different  divinities.  Po¬ 
seidon  Hippius,  Poseidon  Phytalmius,  the  Erechthean  Poseidon, 
the  Ægean  Poseidon,  the  Heliconian  Poseidon,  were  different 
gods,  who  had  neither  the  same  attributes  nor  the  same  worship- 
pel's. 

*  r EoTiovgoif  icfiiOTtut,  nur^Moi.  rO  iu'oç  Ztvç ,  Eurip.,  Hecu~ 
ha ,  345:  Mzdea,  395.  Sophocles,  Ajax ,  492.  Virgil,  VIII. 
543.  Herodotus,  I.  44. 


164 


THE  CITY. 


book  in. 


of  the  Jupiter  who  sits  near  your  hearth.”  Medea,  the 
enchantress,  says,  in  Euripides,  “I  swear  by  Hecate, 
my  protecting  goddess,  whom  I  venerate,  and  who  in¬ 
habits  this  sanctuary  of  my  hearth.”  When  Virgil 
describes  what  is  oldest  in  the  religion  of  Rome,  he 
shows  Hercules  associated  with  the  sacred  fire  of  Evan- 
der,  and  adored  by  him  as  a  domestic  divinity. 

Hence  came  those  thousands  of  forms  of  local  wor¬ 
ship  among  which  no  unity  could  ever  be  established. 
Hence  those  contests  of  the  gods  of  which  polytheism 
is  full,  and  which  represent  struggles  of  families,  can¬ 
tons,  or  villages.  Hence,  too,  that  innumerable  multi¬ 
tude  of  gods  and  goddesses  of  whom  assuredly  we  know 
but  the  smallest  part;  for  many  have  perished  without 
even  having  left  their  names,  simply  because  the  fami¬ 
lies  who  adored  them  became  extinct,  or  the  cities  that 
had  adopted  them  were  destroyed. 

It  must  have  been  a  long  time  before  these  gods  left 
the  bosom  of  the  families  with  whom  they  had  origi¬ 
nated  and  who  regarded  them  as  their  patrimony.  We 
know  even  that  many  of  them  never  became  disengaged 
from  this  sort  of  domestic  tie.  The  Demeter  of  Eleu¬ 
sis  remained  the  special  divinity  of  the  family  of  the 
Eumolpidæ.  The  Athene  of  the  Acropolis  of  Athens 
belonged  to  the  family  of  the  Butadae.  The  Potitii  of 
Rome  had  a  Hercules,  and  the  Nautii  a  Minerva.1  It 
appears  highly  probable  that  the  worship  of  Venus  was 
for  a  long  time  limited  to  the  family  of  the  Julii,  and 
that  this  goddess  had  no  public  worship  at  Rome. 

It  happened,  in  the  course  of  time,  the  divinity  of  a 
family  having  acquired  a  great  prestige  over  the  imagi¬ 
nations  of  men,  and  appearing  powerful  in  proportion 


1  Livy,  IX.  29.  Dionysius,  YI.  69. 


CH  4P.  n. 


NiCW  KELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 


VL 

to  the  prosperity  of  this  family,  that  a  whole  city  wished 
to  adopt  him,  and  offer  him  public  worship,  to  obtain 
his  favors.  This  was  the  case  with  the  Demeter  of  the 
Eumolpidæ,  the  Athene  of  the  Butadæ,  and  the  Hercu¬ 
les  of  the  Poti/ii.  But  when  a  family  consented  thus 
to  share  its  god,  it  retained  at  least  the  priesthood.  We 
may  remark  that  the  dignity  of  priest,  for  each  god, 
was  during  a  long  time  hereditary,  and  could  not  go 
out  of  a  certain  family.1  This  is  a  vestige  of  a  time 
when  the  god  himself  was  the  property  of  this  family  ; 
when  he  protected  it  alone,  and  would  be  served  only 
by  it. 

We  are  correct,  therefore,  in  saying  that  this  second 
religion  was  at  first  in  unison  with  the  social  condition 
of  men.  It  was  cradled  in  each  family,  and  remained 
long  bounded  by  this  narrow  horizon.  But  it  lent  it¬ 
self  more  easily  than  the  worship  of  the  dead  to  the 
future  progress  of  human  association.  Indeed,  the  an¬ 
cestors,  heroes,  and  manes  were  gods,  who  by  their 
very  nature  could  be  adored  only  by  a  very  small  num¬ 
ber  of  men,  and  who  thus  established  a  perpetual  and 
impassable  line  of  demarcation  between  families.  The 
religion  of  the  gods  of  nature  was  more  comprehensive. 
No  rigorous  laws  opposed  the  propagation  of  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  any  of  these  gods.  There  was  nothing  in  their 
nature  that  required  them  to  be  adored  by  one  family 
only,  and  to  repel  the  stranger.  Finally,  men  must  have 
come  insensibly  to  perceive  that  the  Jupiter  of  one 

1  Herodotus,  Y.  64,  65;  IX.  27.  Pindar,  Isthm.,  VII.  18. 
Xenophon,  Hell.,  VI.  8.  Plato,  Laws,  p.  759;  Banquet ,  p.  40. 
Cicero,  De  Divin.,  I.  41.  Tacitus,  Ann.  II.  54.  Plutarch,  The¬ 
seus,  23.  Strabo,  IX.  421  ;  XIV.  634.  Callimachus,  Hymn  U 
Apollo,  84.  Pausanias,  1.37;  VI.  17;  X.  1.  Apollodorus,  117 
IÇ.  Harpocration,  v.  EvnS'ai.  Boeckh,  Corp.  Inscript.,  134C, 


166 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


family  was  really  the  same  being  or  the  same  concep¬ 
tion  as  the  Jupiter  of  another,  which  they  could  never 
believe  of  two  Lares,  two  ancestors,  or  two  sacred 
Gres. 

Let  us  add,  that  the  morality  of  this  new  religion  was 
different.  It  was  not  confined  to  teaching  men  family 
duties.  Jupiter  was  the  god  of  hospitality  ;  in  his  name 
came  strangers,  suppliants,  “  the  venerable  poor,”  those 
who  were  to  be  treated  “  as  brothers.”  All  these  gods 
often  assumed  the  human  form,  and  appeared  among 
mortals  ;  sometimes,  indeed,  to  assist  in  their  struggles 
and  to  take  part  in  theii  combats  ;  often,  also,  to  enjoin 
concord,  and  to  teach  them  to  help  each  other. 

.  As  this  second  religion  continued  to  develop,  socie¬ 
ty  must  have  enlarged.  Now,  it  is  quite  evident  that 
this  religion,  feeble  at  first,  afterwards  assumed  large 
proportions.  In  the  beginning  it  was,  so  to  speak,  shel¬ 
tered  under  the  protection  of  its  elder  sister,  near  the 
domestic  hearth.  There  the  god  had  obtained  a  small 
place,  a  narrow  cella ,  near  and  opposite  to  the  venerated 
altar,  in  order  that  a  little  of  the  respect  which  men 
had  for  the  sacred  fire  might  be  shared  by  him.  Little 
by  little,  the  god,  gaining  more  authority  over  the  soul, 
renounced  this  sort  of  guardianship,  and  left  the  domes¬ 
tic  hearth.  He  had  a  dwelling  of  his  own,  and  his  own 
sacrifices.  This  dwelling  from  vulta9  to  inhabit) 

was,  moreover,  built  after  the  fashion  of  the  ancient 
sanctuary  ;  it  was,  as  before,  a  cella  opposite  a  hearth  ; 
but  the  cella  was  enlarged  and  embellished,  and  became 
a  temple.  The  holy  fire  remained  at  the  entrance  of 
the  god’s  house,  but  appeared  very  small  by  the  side 
of  this  house.  What  had  at  first  been  the  principal, 
had  now  become  only  an  accessory.  It  ceased  to  be  a 
god,  and  descended  to  the  rank  of  the  god’s  altar,  an  in- 


CHAP.  ill. 


THE  CITY  FORMED. 


167 


strument  tor  the  sacrifice.  Its  office  was  to  burn  tb*1 
flesh  of  the  victim,  and  to  carry  the  offering  with  men's 
prayeis  to  the  majestic  divinity  whose  statue  resided 
in  the  temple. 

When  we  see  these  temples  rise  and  open  their  doors 
to  the  multitude  of  worshippers,  we  may  be  assured 
that  human  associations  have  become  enlarged. 


CHAPTER  m. 

The  City  formed. 

The  tribe,  like  the  family  and  the  phratry,  was  es¬ 
tablished  as  an  independent  body,  since  it  had  a  special 
worship  from  which  the  stranger  was  excluded.  Once 
formed,  no  new  family  could  be  admitted  to  it.  No 
more  could  two  tribes  be  fused  into  one  ;  their  religion 
was  opposed  to  this.  But  just  as  several  phratries  were 
united  in  a  tribe,  several  tribes  might  associate  together, 
on  condition  that  the  religion  of  each  should  be  respect¬ 
ed.  The  day  on  which  this  alliance  took  place  the  city 
existed. 

It  is  of  little  account  to  seek  the  cause  which  deter¬ 
mined  several  neighboring  tribes  to  unite.  Sometimes 
it  was  voluntary;  sometimes  it  was  imposed  by  the 
superior  force  of  a  tribe,  or  by  the  powerful  will  of  a 
man.  What  is  certain  is,  that  the  bond  of  the  new 
association  was  still  a  religion.  The  tribes  that  united 
to  form  a  city  never  failed  to  light  a  sacred  fire,  and  to 
adopt  a  common  religion. 

Thus  human  society,  in  this  race,  did  not  enlarge 
like  a  circle,  which  increases  on  all  sides,  gaining  little 


168 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


by  little.  There  were,  on  the  contrary,  small  groups, 
which,  having  been  long  established,  were  finally  joined 
together  in  larger  ones.  Several  families  formed  the 
phratry,  several  phratries  the  tribe,  several  tribes  the 
city.  Family,  phratry,  tribe,  city,  were,  moreover,  soci¬ 
eties  exactly  similar  to  each  other,  which  were  formed 
one  after  the  other  by  a  series  of  federations. 

We  must  remark,  also,  that  when  the  different  groups 
became  thus  associated,  none  of  them  lost  its  individu¬ 
ality,  or  its  independence.  Although  several  families 
were  united  in  a  phratry,  each  one  of  them  remained 
constituted  just  as  it  had  been  when  separate.  Nothing 
was  changed  in  it,  neither  worship  nor  priesthood,  nor 
property  nor  internal  justice.  Curies  afterwards  be¬ 
came  associated,  but  each  retained  its  worship,  its  as¬ 
semblies,  its  festivals,  its  chief.  From  the  tribe  men 
passed  to  the  city;  but  the  tribe  was  not  dissolved  on 
that  account,  and  each  of  them  continued  to  form  a 
body,  very  much  as  if  the  city  had  not  existed.  In 
religion  there  subsisted  a  multitude  of  subordinate 
worships,  above  which  was  established  one  common  to 
all;  in  politics,  numerous  little  governments  continued 
to  act,  while  above  them  a  common  government  was 
founded. 

The  city  was  a  confederation.  Hence  it  was  obliged, 
at  least  for  several  centuries,  to  respect  the  religious  and 
civil  independence  of  the  tribes,  curies,  and  families, 
and  had  not  the  right,  at  first,  to  interfere  in  the  private 
affairs  of  each  of  these  little  bodies.  It  had  nothing: 
to  do  in  the  interior  of  a  family  ;  it  was  not  the  judge 
of  what  passed  there;  it  left  to  the  father  the  right  and 
duty  of  judging  his  wife,  his  son,  and  his  client.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  private  law,  which  had  been  fixed 
at  the  time  when  families  were  isolated,  could  sub 


ÏÏHAP.  DI. 


THE  CITY  FORMED. 


169 


sist  in  the  city,  and  was  modified  only  at  a  very  late 
period. 

The  mode  of  founding  ancient  cities  is  attested  by 
usages  which  continued  for  a  very  long  time. 

If  we  examine  the  army  of  the  city  in  primitive  times, 
we  find  it  distributed  into  tribes,  curies,  and  families,1 
“in  such  a  way,”  says  one  of  the  ancients,  “that  the 
warrior  has  for  a  neighbor  in  the  combat  one  with 
whom,  in  time  of  peace,  he  has  offered  the  libation  and 
sacrifice  at  the  same  altar.”  If  we  look  at  the  people 
when  assembled,  in  the  early  ages  of  Rome,  we  see 
them  voting  by  curies  and  by  gentes ,2  If  we  look  at 
the  worship,  we  see  at  Rome  six  Vestals,  two  for  each 
tribe.  At  Athens,  the  archon  offers  the  sacrifice  in  the 
name  of  the  entire  city,  but  he  has  in  the  religious 
part  of  the  ceremony  as  many  assistants  as  there  are 
tribes. 

Thus  the  city  was  not  an  assemblage  of  individuals; 
it  was  a  confederation  of  several  groups,  which  were 
established  before  it,  and  which  it  permitted  to  remain. 
We  see,  in  the  Athenian  orators,  that  every  Athenian 
formed  a  portion  of  four  distinct  societies  at  the  same 
time;  he  was  a  member  of  a  family,  of  a  phratry,  of  a 
tribe,  and  of  a  city.  He  did  not  enter  at  the  same  time 
and  the  same  day  into  all  these  four,  like  a  Frenchman, 
who  at  the  moment  of  his  birth  belongs  at  once  to  a 
family,  a  commune,  a  department,  and  a  country.  The 
phratry  and  the  tribe  are  not  administrative  divisions. 
A  man  enters  at  different  times  into  these  four  socie¬ 
ties,  and  ascends,  so  to  speak,  from  one  to  the  other. 
First,  the  child  is  admitted  into  the  family  by  the 

1  Homer,  Iliad ,  II.  362.  Varro,  De  Ling.  Lot V.  89. 
Isæus,  II.  42. 

8  Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27. 


170 


THÏÏ  CITY. 


BOOK  in. 


religious  ceremony,  which  takes  place  six  days  after 
his  birth.  Some  years  later  he  enters  the  phratry  by 
a  new  ceremony,  which  we  have  already  described. 
Finally,  at  the  age  of  sixteen  or  eighteen,  he  is  pre¬ 
sented  for  admission  into  the  city.  On  that  day,  in 
the  presence  of  an  altar,  and  before  the  smoking  flesh 
of  a  victim,  he  pronounces  an  oath,  by  which  he  binds 
himself,  among  other  things,  always  to  respect  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  city.  From  that  day  he  is  initiated  into 
the  public  worship,  and  becomes  a  citizen.1  If  we 
observe  this  young  Athenian  rising,  step  by  step,  from 
worship  to  worship,  we  have  a  symbol  of  the  degrees 
through  which  human  association  has  passed.  The 
course  which  this  young  man  is  constrained  to  follow, 
is  that  which  society  first  followed. 

An  example  will  make  this  truth  clearer.  There  have 
remained  to  us  in  the  antiquities  of  Athens  traditions 
and  traces  enough  to  enable  us  to  see  quite  clearly  how 
the  Athenian  city  was  formed.  At  first,  says  Plu¬ 
tarch,  Attica  was  divided  by  families.2  Some  of  these 
families  of  the  primitive  period,  like  the  Eumolpidæ, 
the  Cecropidæ,  the  Gephyræi,  the  Phytalidæ,  and  the 
Lakiadæ,  were  perpetuated  to  the  following  ages.  At 
that  time  the  city  did  not  exist;  but  every  family, 
surrounded  by  its  younger  branches  and  its  clients, 
occupied  a  canton,  and  lived  there  in  absolute  inde¬ 
pendence.  Each  had  its  own  religion  ;  the  Eumolpidæ, 
fixed  at  Eleusis,  adored  Demeter;  the  Cecropidæ,  who 
inhabited  the  rocks  where  Athens  was  afterwards  built, 
had  Poseidon  and  Athene  for  protecting  divinities, 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul.  Isæus,  VII.  IX.  Lycurgus,  I 
76.  Scliol.,  in  Demosth.^  p.  438.  Pollux,  VIII.  105.  Stobseus 
De  Repub. 

*  Kura  Plutarch,  Theseus .  24,  13. 


CHAP.  111. 


THE  CITY  FORMED. 


171 


Near  by,  oi.  the  little  hill  of  the  Areopagus,  the  pro¬ 
tecting  god  was  Ares.  At  Marathon  it  was  Hercules  ; 
at  Prasiæ  an  Apollo,  another  Apollo  at  Phlius,  the  Dios¬ 
curi  at  Cephalus,  and  thus  of  all  the  other  cantons.1 

Every  family,  as  it  had  its  god  and  its  altar,  had  also 
its  chief.  When  Pausanias  visited  Attica,  he  found 
in  the  little  villages  ancient  traditions  which  had  been 
perpetuated  with  the  worship  ;  and  these  traditions 
informed  him  that  every  little  burgh  had  had  its  king 
before  the  time  when  Cecrops  reigned  at  Athens.  Was 
not  this  a  memorial  of  a  distant  age,  when  the  great 
patriarchal  families,  like  the  Celtic  clans,  had  each 
its  hereditary  chief,  who  was  at  the  same  time  priest 
and  judge?  Some  hundred  little  societies  then  lived 
isolated  in  the  country,  recognizing  no  political  or  re¬ 
ligious  bond  among  them,  having  each  its  territory, 
often  at  war,  and  living  so  completely  separated  that 
marriage  between  them  was  not  always  permitted.2 

But  their  needs  or  their  sentiments  brought  them 
together.  Insensibly  they  joined  in  little  groups  of 
four,  five,  or  six.  Thus  we  find  in  the  traditions  that 
the  four  villages  of  Marathon  united  to  adore  the  same 
Delphian  Apollo  ;  the  men  of  the  Piræus,  Phalerum, 
and  two  neighboring  burghs,  united  and  built  a  temple 
to  Hercules.3  In  the  course  of  time  these  many  little 
states  were  reduced  to  twelve  confederations.  This 
change,  by  which  the  people  passed  from  the  patriarchal 
family  state  to  a  society  somewhat  more  extensive,  vas 
attributed  by  tradition  to  the  efforts  of  Cecrops:  we 
are  merely  to  understand  by  this,  that  it  was  not  ac- 

*  Pausanias,  I.  15;  31,  37,  II.  18. 

2  Plutarch,  Theseus,  13. 

3  Id.,  ibid.,  14.  Pollux,  VI.  105.  Stephen  of  Byzantium, 

ijrêUSai. 


172 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


complished  until  the  time  at  which  they  place  this  per¬ 
sonage —  that  is  to  say,  towards  the  sixteenth  century 
before  our  era.  We  see,  moreover,  that  this  Cecrops 
reigned  over  only  one  of  these  twelve  associations,  that 
which  afterwards  became  Athens;  the  other  eleven 
were  completely  independent;  each  had  its  tutelary 
deity,  its  altar,  its  sacred  fire,  and  its  chief.1 

Several  centuries  passed,  during  which  the  Cecrop- 
idæ  insensibly  acquired  greater  importance.  Of  this 
period  there  remains  the  tradition  of  a  bloody  struggle 
sustained  by  them  against  the  Eumolpidæ  of  Eleusis, 
the  result  of  which  was,  that  the  latter  submitted,  with 
the  single  reservation  that  they  should  preserve  the 
hereditary  priesthood  of  their  divinity.2  There  were 
doubtless  other  struggles  and  other  conquests,  of  which 
no  memorial  has  been  preserved.  The  rock  of  the 
Cecropidæ,  on  which  was  developed,  by  degrees,  the 
worship  of  Athene,  and  which  finally  adopted  the  name 
of  their  principal  divinity,  acquired  the  supremacy  over 
the  other  eleven  states.  Then  appeared  Theseus,  the 
heir  of  the  Cecropidæ.  All  the  traditions  agree  in 
declaring  that  he  united  the  twelve  groups  into  one 
city.  He  succeeded,  indeed,  in  bringing  all  Attica  to 
adopt  the  worship  of  Athene  Polias,  so  that  thenceforth 
the  whole  country  celebrated  the  sacrifice  of  the  Pa- 
nathenæa  in  common.  Before  him,  every  burgh  had  its 
sacred  fire  and  its  prytany.  He  wished  to  make  the 
prytany  of  Athens  the  religious  centre  of  all  Attica.3 
From  that  time  Athenian  unity  was  established.  In 

1  Philochorus,  quoted  by  Strabo,  IX.  Thucydides,  II.  16. 
Pollux,  VIII.  111. 

*  Pausanias,  I.  38. 

3  Thucydides,  II.  15.  Plutarch,  Theseus ,  24.  Pausanias,  1, 
26-  VIII.  2. 


s 


CHAP.  III. 


THE  CITY  FORMED. 


173 


religion  every  car, ton  preserved  its  ancient  worship, 
but  adopted  one  that  was  common  to  all.  Politically, 
each  preserved  its  chiefs,  its  judges,  its  right  of  assem¬ 
bling;  but  above  all  these  local  governments,  there  was 
the  central  government  of  the  city.1 

From  these  precise  memorials  and  traditions,  which 
Athens  preserved  so  religiously,  there  seem  to  us  to  be 
two  truths  equally  manifest:  the  one  is,  that  the  city 
was  a  confederation  of  groups  that  had  been  established 
before  it;  and  the  other  is,  that  society  developed  only 

1  According  to  Plutarch  and  Thucydides,  Theseus  destroyed 
the  local  prytanies,  and  abolished  the  magistracies  of  the  burghs. 
If  he  attempted  this,  he  certainly  did  not  succeed:  for  a  long 
while  after  him  we  still  find  the  local  worships,  the  assemblies, 
and  the  kings  of  tribes.  Boeckh,  Corp.  Inscrip. ,  82,  85.  De¬ 
mosthenes,  in  Theocrinera.  Pollux,  VIII.  Ill.  We  put  aside 
the  legend  of  Ion,  to  which  several  modern  historians  seem  to  us 
to  have  given  too  much  importance,  by  presenting  it  as  an  indi¬ 
cation  of  a  foreign  invasion  of  Attica.  This  invasion  is  indicated 
by  no  tradition.  If  Attica  had  been  conquered  by  these  Ionians 
of  the  Peloponnesus,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  Athenians  would 
have  so  religiously  preserved  their  names  of  Cecropidæ,  and 
Erechtheidæ,  and  that  they  would  have  been  ashamed  of  the 
name  of  Ionians.  (Hdts,  I.  143.)  We  can  also  reply  to  those 
who  believe  in  this  invasion,  and  that  the  nobility  of  the  Eupa- 
trids  is  due  to  it,  that  most  of  the  great  families  of  Athens  go 
back  to  a  date  much  earlier  than  that  given  for  the  arrival  of  Ion 
in  Attica.  The  Athenians  certainly  belong  to  the  Ionic  branch 
of  the  Hellenic  race.  Strabo  tells  us  that,  in  the  earliest  times, 
Attica  was  called  Ionia  and  las.  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  make 
the  son  of  Xutlius,  the  legendary  hero  of  Euripides,  the  parent 
stock  of  these  Ionians;  they  are  long  anterior  to  Ion,  and  their 
name  is  perhaps  much  more  ancient  than  that  of  Hellenes.  It 
is  wrong  to  make  all  the  Eupatrids  descendants  of  this  Ion,  and 
to  present  this  class  of  men  as  conquerors  who  oppressed  a 
conquered  people.  There  is  no  ancient  testimony  to  support 
this  opinion. 


174 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


so  fast  as  religion  enlarged  its  sphere.  We  cannot, 
indeed,  say  that  religious  progress  brought  social  prog¬ 
ress  ;  but  what  is  certain  is,  that  they  were  both  pro¬ 
duced  at  the  same  time,  and  in  remarkable  accord. 

We  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  excessive  difficulty 
which,  in  primitive  times,  opposed  the  foundation  of 
regular  societies.  The  social  tie  was  not  easy  to  es¬ 
tablish  between  those  human  beings  who  were  so 
diverse,  so  free,  so  inconstant.  To  bring  them  under 
the  rules  of  a  community,  to  institute  commandments 
and  insure  obedience,  to  cause  passion  to  give  way  to 
reason,  and  individual  right  to  public  right,  there  cer¬ 
tainly  was  something  necessary,  stronger  than  material 
force,  more  respectable  than  interest,  surer  than  a 
philosophical  theory,  more  unchangeable  than  a  con¬ 
vention;  something  that  should  dwell  equally  in  all 
hearts,  and  should  be  all-powerful  there. 

This  power  was  a  belief.  Nothing  has  more  power 
over  the  soul.  A  belief  is  the  work  of  our  mind,  but 
we  are  not  on  that  account  free  to  modify  it  at  will. 
It  is  our  own  creation,  but  we  do  not  know  it.  It  is 
human,  and  we  believe  it  a  god.  It  is  the  effect  of  our 
power,  and  is  stronger  than  we  are.  It  is  in  us  ;  it 
does  not  quit  us  :  it  speaks  to  us  at  every  moment. 
If  it  tells  us  to  obey,  we  obey  ;  if  it  traces  duties  for  us, 
we  submit.  Man  may,  indeed,  subdue  nature,  but  he 
is  subdued  by  his  own  thoughts. 

Now,  an  ancient  belief  commanded  a  man  to  honor  his 
ancestor;  the  worship  of  the  ancestor  grouped  a  family 
around  an  altar.  Thus  arose  the  first  religion,  the  first 
prayers,  the  first  ideas  of  duty,  and  of  morals.  Thus, 
too,  was  the  right  of  property  established,  and  the  order 
of  succession  fixed.  Thus,  in  fine,  arose  all  private  law, 
and  all  the  rules  of  domestic  organization.  Later  the 


CHAP.  HL 


THE  CITY  FORMED. 


175 


belief  grew,  and  human  society  grew  at  the  same  time. 
When  men  begin  to  perceive  that  there  are  common 
divinities  for  them,  they  unite  in  larger  groups.  The 
same  rules,  invented  and  established  for  the  family, 
are  applied  successively  to  the  phratry,  the  tribe,  and 
the  city. 

Let  us  take  in  at  a  glance  the  road  over  which  man 
has  passed.  In  the  beginning  the  family  lived  isolated, 
and  man  knew  only  the  domestic  gods —  d&ol  ttutqmoi, 
dii  gentiles.  Above  the  family  was  formed  the  phra¬ 
try  with  its  god  —  Otog  cpo&TQiog ,  Juno  curialis .  Then 
came  the  tribe,  and  the  god  of  the  tribe  —  deog  yvhog. 
Finally  came  the  city,  and  men  conceived  a  god  whose 
providence  embraced  this  entire  city  —  ôc-oç  nohevç,  pé¬ 
nates  publici ;  a  hierarchy  of  creeds,  and  a  hierarchy 
of  association.  The  religious  idea  was,  among  the 
ancients,  the  inspiring  breath  and  organizer  of  society. 

The  traditions  of  the  Hindus,  of  the  Greeks,  and  of 
the  Etruscans,  relate  that  the  gods  revealed  social  laws 
to  man.  Under  this  legendary  form  there  is  a  truth. 
Social  laws  were  the  work  of  the  gods  ;  but  those  gods, 
so  powerful  and  beneficent,  were  nothing  else  than  the 
beliefs  of  men. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  cities  among  the  ancients. 
This  study  was  necessary  to  give  us  a  correct  idea  of 
the  nature  and  institutions  of  the  city.  But  here  we 
must  make  a  reservation.  If  the  first  cities  were  formed 
of  a  confederation  of  little  societies  previously  estab¬ 
lished,  this  is  not  saying  that  all  the  cities  known  to  us 
were  formed  in  the  same  manner.  The  municipal  organ¬ 
ization  once  discovered,  it  was  not  necessary  for  each 
new  city  to  pass  over  the  same  long  and  difficult  route. 
It  might  often  happen  that  they  followed  the  inverse 
order.  When  a  chief’  quitting  a  city  already  organized, 


176 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IU 


went  to  found  another,  lie  took  with  him  commonly 
only  a  small  number  of  his  fellow-citizens.  He  associ¬ 
ated  with  them  a  multitude  of  other  men  who  came 
from  different  parts,  and  might  even  belong  to  different 
races.  But  this  chief  never  failed  to  organize  the  ne\v 
state  after  the  model  of  the  one  he  had  just  quitted. 
Consequently  he  divided  his  people  into  tribes  and 
phratries.  Each  of  these  little  associations  had  an  altar, 
sacrifices,  and  festivals;  each  even  invented  an  ancient 
hero,  whom  it  honored  with  its  worship,  and  from 
whom,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  it  believed  itself  to  have 
been  descended. 

It  often  happened,  too,  that  the  men  of  some  country 
lived  without  laws  and  without  order,  either  because 
no  one  had  ever  been  able  to  establish  a  social  organiza¬ 
tion  there,  as  in  Arcadia,  or  because  it  had  been  cor¬ 
rupted  and  dissolved  by  too  rapid  revolutions,  as  at 
Cyrene  and  Thurii.  If  a  legislator  undertook  to  estab¬ 
lish  order  among  these  men,  he  never  failed  to  com¬ 
mence  by  dividing  them  into  tribes  and  phratries,  as  if 
this  were  the  only  type  of  society.  In  each  of  these 
organizations  he  named  an  eponymous  hero,  established 
sacrifices,  and  inaugurated  traditions.  This  was  always 
the  manner  of  commencing,  if  he  wished  to  found  a 
regular  society.1  Thus  Plato  did  when  he  imagined 
a  model  city. 


1  Herodotis,  IV.  161.  Cf.  Plato,  Lavs,  V.  738  ;  VI.  771. 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  CITY. 


17? 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  City. 

Ox  vitas,  and  Urbs,  either  of  which  we  translate  by 
the  word  city ,  were  not  synonymous  words  among  the 
ancients.  Civitas  was  the  religious  and  political  associ¬ 
ation  of  families  and  tribes  ;  Urbs  was  the  place  of 
assembly,  the  dwelling-place,  and,  above  all,  the  sanc¬ 
tuary  of  this  association. 

We  are  not  to  picture  ancient  cities  to  ourselves  as 
anything  like  what  we  see  in  our  day.  We  build  a 
few  houses;  it  is  a  village.  Insensibly  the  number  of 
houses  increases,  and  it  becomes  a  city;  and  finally,  if 
there  is  occasion  for  it,  we  surround  this  with  a  wall. 

With  the  ancients,  a  city  was  never  formed  by  de¬ 
grees,  by  the  slow  increase  of  the  number  of  men  and 
houses.  They  founded  a  city  at  once,  all  entire  in  a 
day;  but  the  elements  of  the  city  needed  to  be  first 
ready,  and  this  was  the  most  difficult,  and  ordinarily  the 
largest  work.  As  soon  as  the  families,  the  phratries, 
and  the  tribes  had  agreed  to  unite  and  have  the  same 
worship,  they  immediately  founded  the  city  as  a  sanc¬ 
tuary  for  this  common  worship,  and  thus  the  foundation 
of  a  city  was  always  a  religious  act. 

As  a  first  example,  we  will  take  Rome  itself,  not¬ 
withstanding  the  doubt  that  is  attached  to  its  early 
history.  It  has  often  been  said  that  Romulus  was  chief 
of  a  band  of  adventurers,  and  that  he  formed  a  people 
by  calling  around  him  vagabonds  and  robbers,  and  that 
all  these  men,  collected  without  distinction,  built  at 
hazard  a  few  huts  to  shelter  their  booty;  but  ancient 

12 


178 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  ill. 


writers  present  the  facts  in  quite  another  shape,  and  it 
seems  to  us  that  if  we  desire  to  understand  antiquity, 
our  first  rule  should  be  to  support  ourselves  upon  the 
evidence  that  comes  from  the  ancients.  Those  writers 
do,  indeed,  mention  an  asylum  —  that  is  to  say,  a  sacred 
enclosure,  where  Romulus  admitted  all  who  presented 
themselves  ;  and  in  this  he  followed  the  example  which 
many  founders  of  cities  had  afforded  him.  But  this 
asylum  was  not  the  city  ;  it  was  not  even  opened  till 
after  the  city  had  been  founded  and  completely  built. 
It  was  an  appendage  added  to  Rome,  but  was  not 
Rome.  It  did  not  even  form  a  part  of  the  city  of 
Romulus  ;  for  it  was  situated  at  the  foot  of  the  Capi¬ 
toline  hill,  whilst  the  city  occupied  the  Palatine.  It  is 
of  the  first  importance  to  distinguish  the  double  ele¬ 
ment  of  the  Roman  population.  In  the  asylum  are 
adventurers  without  land  or  religion  ;  on  the  Palatine 
are  men  from  Alba  —  that  is  to  say,  men  already 
organized  into  a  society,  distributed  into  gentes  and 
curies,  having  a  domestic  worship  and  laws.  The  asy¬ 
lum  is  merely  a  hamlet  or  suburb,  where  the  huts  are 
built  at  hazard,  and  without  rule;  on  the  Palatine  rises 
a  city,  religious  and  holy. 

As  to  the  manner  in  which  this  city  was  founded, 
antiquity  abounds  in  information  ;  we  find  it  in  Dio¬ 
nysius  of  Halicarnassus,  who  collected  it  from  authors 
older  than  his  time;  we  find  it  in  Plutarch,  in  the 
Fasti  of  Ovid,  in  Tacitus,  in  Cato  the  Elder,  who  had 
consulted  the  ancient  annals;  and  in  two  other  writers 
who  ought  above  all  to  inspire  us  with  great  con¬ 
fidence,  the  learned  Varro  and  the  learned  Verrius 
Flaccus,  whom  Festus  has  preserved  ip  part  for  us, 
both  men  deeply  versed  in  Roman  antiquities,  lovers 
ol  truth,  in  no  wise  credulous,  and  well  acquainted  with 


CHIP.  IV. 


THE  CITV. 


179 


the  rules  of  historical  criticism.  All  these  writers 
have  transmitted  to  us  the  tradition  of  the  religious 
ceremony  which  marked  the  foundation  of  Rome,  and 
we  are  not  prepared  to  reject  so  great  a  number  of 
witnesses. 

It  is  not  a  rare  thing  for  the  ancients  to  relate  facts 
that  surprise  us;  but  is  this  a  reason  why  we  should 
pronounce  them  fables?  above  all,  if  these  facts,  though 
not  in  accord  with  modern  ideas,  agree  perfectly  with 
those  of  the  ancients?  We  have  seen  in  their  private 
life  a  religion  which  regulated  all  their  acts;  later,  we 
saw  that  this  religion  established  them  in  communities: 
why  does  it  astonish  us,  after  this,  that  the  foundation 
of  a  city  was  a  sacred  act,  and  that  Romulus  himself 
was  obliged  to  perform  rites  which  were  observed 
everywhere?  The  first  care  of  the  founder  was  to 
choose  the  site  for  the  new  city.  But  this  choice  —  a 
weighty  question,  on  which  they  believed  the  destiny 
of  the  people  depended — -was  always  left  to  the  decis¬ 
ion  of  the  gods.  If  Romulus  had  been  a  Greek,  he 
would  have  consulted  the  oracle  of  Delphi;  if  a  Sam- 
nite,  he  would  have  followed  the  sacred  animal — the 
wolf,  or  the  green  woodpecker.  Being  a  Latin,  and  a 
neighbor  of  the  Etruscans,  initiated  into  the  augurial 
science,1  he  asks  the  gods  to  reveal  their  will  to  him 
by  the  flight  of  birds.  The  gods  point  out  the  Pal¬ 
atine. 

The  day  for  the  foundation  having  arrived,  he  first 
offers  a  sacrifice.  His  companions  are  ranged  around 
him  ;  they  light  a  fire  of  brushwood,  and  each  one  leaps 
through  the  flame.2  The  explanation  of  this  rite  is, 

Cicero,  De  Divin .,  I.  17.  Plutarch,  CamillnSy  32.  Pliny, 
XIV.  2;  XVTU.  12. 

s  Dionysius,  I.  88. 


1 80 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK.  III. 


that  for  the  act  about  to  take  place,  it  is  necessary  that 
the  people  be  pure;  and  the  ancients  believed  they 
could  purify  themselves  from  all  stain,  physical  or  moral, 
by  leaping  through  a  sacred  flame. 

When  this  preliminary  ceremony  had  prepared  the 
people  for  the  grand  act  of  the  foundation,  Romulus 
dug  a  small  trench,  of  a  circular  form,  and  threw  into  it 
a  clod  ot  earth,  which  he  had  brought  from  the  city  of 
Alba.1  Then  each  of  his  companions,  approaching  by 
turns,  following  his  example,  threw  in  a  little  earth, 
which  he  had  brought  1’rom  the  country  from  which  he 
had  come.  This  rite  is  remarkable,  and  reveals  to  us  a 
notion  of  the  ancients  to  which  we  must  call  attention. 
Before  coming  to  the  Palatine,  they  had  lived  in  Alba, 
or  some  other  neighboring  city.  There  was  their  sacred 
lire;  there  their  lathers  had  lived  and  been  buried. 
Now,  their  religion  forbade  them  to  quit  the  land 
where  the  hearth  had  been  established,  and  where  their 
divine  ancestors  reposed.  It  was  necessary,  then,  in 
order  to  be  free  from  all  impiety,  that  each  of  these 
men  should  employ  a  fiction,  and  that  he  should  carry 
with  him,  under  the  symbol  of  a  clod  of  earth,  the  sacred 
soil  where  his  ancestors  were  buried,  and  to  which  their 
manes  wTere  attached.  A  man  could  not  quit  his  dwell¬ 
ing-place  without  taking  with  him  his  soil  and  his 
ancestors.  This  rite  had  to  be  accomplished,  so  that 
he  might  say,  pointing  out  the  new  place  which  he  had 
adopted,  This  is  still  the  land  of  my  fathers,  terra  pa- 
trum ,  patria  ;  here  is  my  country,  for  here  are  the 
manes  of  my  family. 

The  trench  into  which  each  one  had  thrown  a  little 
earth  was  called  muudus .  Now,  this  word  designated  in 

1  Plutarch,  Romulus ,  It.  Dion  Cassius,  Fragm 12.  Ovid, 
Fasliy  IV.  821  Festus,  v.  Quadrat  a. 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  CITY. 


181 


the  ancient  language,  the  region  ot  the  manes.1  From 
this  place,  according  to  tradition,  the  souls  of  the  dead 
escaped  three  times  a  year,  desirous  of  again  seeing  the 
light  for  a  moment.  Do  we  not  see  also,  in  this  tra¬ 
dition,  the  real  thought  of  these  ancient  men  ?  When 
placing  in  the  trench  a  clod  of  earth  from  their  former 
country,  they  believed  they  had  enclosed  there  the 
souls  of  their  ancestors.  These  souls,  reunited  there, 
required  a  perpetual  worship,  and  kept  guard  over  their 
descendants.  At  this  same  place  Romulus  set  up  an 
altar,  and  lighted  a  fire  upon  it.  This  was  the  holy 
fire  of  the  city.2 

Around  this  hearth  arose  the  city,  as  the  house  rises 
around  the  domestic  hearth  ;  Romulus  traced  a  furrow 
which  marked  the  enclosure.  Here,  too,  the  smallest 
details  were  fixed  by  a  ritual.  The  founder  made  use 
of  a  copper  ploughshare;  his  plough  was  drawn  by  a 
white  bull  and  a  white  cow.  Romulus,  with  his  head 
veiled,  and  in  the  priestly  robes,  himself  held  the 
handle  of  the  plough  and  directed  it,  while  chanting 
prayers.  His  companions  followed  him,  observing  a 
religious  silence.  As  the  plough  turned  up  clods  of 
earth,  they  carefully  threw  them  within  the  enclosure, 
that  no  particle  of  this  sacred  earth  should  be  on  the 
side  of  the  stranger.3  This  enclosure,  traced  by  re¬ 
ligion,  was  inviolable.  Neither  stranger  nor  citizen  had 

1  Festus,  v.  Mundus .  Servius,  ad  Æn.,  III.  134.  Plutarch, 
Romulus ,  11. 

2  Ovid,  ibid.  Later  the  hearth  was  removed.  When  the 
three  cities,  the  Palatine,  the  Capitoline,  and  the  Quirinal  were 
united  in  one,  the  common  hearth,  or  temple  of  Vesta,  was 
placed  on  neutral  ground  between  the  three  hills. 

3  Plutarch,  Romulus ,  11.  Ovid,  Ibidem.  Varro,  De  Ling.  Lat.t 
V.  143.  Festus,  v.  Primigenius\  v.  Urvai  virgil,  V.  755. 


182 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


the  right  to  cross  over  it.  To  leap  over  this  little 
farrow  was  an  impious  act;  it  is  a  Roman  tradition 
that  the  founder’s  brother  committed  this  act  of  sac¬ 
rilege,  and  paid  for  it  with  his  life.1 

But,  in  order  that  men  might  enter  and  leave  the 
city,  the  furrow  was  interrupted  in  certain  places.2  To 
accomplish  this,  Romulus  raised  the  plough  and  carried 
it  over;  these  intervale  were  called  portæ ;  these  were 
the  gates  of  the  city. 

Upon  the  sacred  furrow,  or  a  little  inside  of  it,  the 
walls  afterwards  arose  ;  they  also  were  sacred.3  No  one 
could  touch  them,  even  to  repair  them,  without  per¬ 
mission  from  the  pontiffs.  On  both  sides  of  this  wall 
a  space,  a  few  paces  wide,  was  given  up  to  religion,  and 
was  called  the  pomœrium  y4  on  this  space  no  plough 
could  be  used,  no  building  constructed. 

Such,  according  to  a  multitude  of  ancient  witnesses, 
was  the  ceremony  of  the  foundation  of  Rome.  If  it  is 
asked  how  this  information  was  preserved  down  to  the 
writers  who  have  transmitted  it  to  us,  the  answer  is, 
that  the  ceremony  was  recalled  to  the  memory  of  the 
people  every  year  by  an  anniversary  festival,  which 
they  called  tho  birthday  of  Rome.  This  festival  was 
celebrated  through  all  antiquity,  from  year  to  year,  and 
the  Roman  people  still  celebrate  it  to-day,  at  the  same 
date  as  formerly  —  the  21st  of  April.  So  faithful  are 
men  to  old  usages  through  incessant  changes. 

We  cannot  reasonably  suppose  that  such  rites  were 
observed  for  the  first  time  by  Romulus.  It  is  certain, 
on  the  contrary,  that  many  cities,  before  Rome,  had 

1  See  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  27. 

*  Cato,  in  Servius,  V.  755. 

3  Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deor .,  III.  40.  Digest,  8,  8.  Gaius,  II.  8. 

4  Yarro,  V.  143.  Livy,  I.  44.  Aulus  Gellius,  XIII.  14. 


CH  4P.  IV. 


THE  CITY. 


183 


been  founded  in  the  same  manner.  According  to 
Varro,  these  rites  were  common  to  Latiura  and  to 
Etruria.  Cato  the  Elder,  who,  in  order  to  write  his 
Origines ,  had  consulted  the  annals  of  all  the  Italian 
nations,  informs  us  that  analogous  rites  were  practised 
by  all  founders  of  cities.  The  Etruscans  possessed 
liturgical  books  in  which  were  recorded  the  complete 
ritual  of  these  ceremonies.1 

The  Greeks,  like  the  Italians,  believed  that  the  site 
of  a  city  should  be  chosen  and  revealed  by  the  divinity. 
So,  when  they  wished  to  found  one,  they  consulted  the 
oracle  at  Delphi.2 *  Herodotus  records,  as  an  act  of  im¬ 
piety  or  madness,  that  the  Spartan  Dorieus  dared  to 
build  a  city  “  without  consulting  the  oracle,  and  with¬ 
out  observing  any  of  the  customary  usages;”  and  the 
pious  historian  is  not  surprised  that  a  dty  thus  con¬ 
structed  in  despite  of  the  rules  lasted  only  three  years/ 
Thucydides,  recalling  the  day  when  Sparta  was  founded, 
mentions  the  pious  chants,  and  the  sacrifices  of  that 
day.  The  same  historian  tells  us  that  the  Athenians 
had  a  particular  ritual,  and  that  they  never  founded  a 
colony  without  conforming  to  it.4  We  may  see  in  a 
comedy  of  Aristophanes  a  sufficiently  exact  picture  of 
the  ceremony  practised  in  such  cases.  When  the  poet 
represented  the  amusing  foundation  of  the  city  of  the 
birds,  he  certainly  had  in  mind  the  customs  which  were 
observed  in  the  foundation  of  the  cities  of  men.  Now 
he  puts  upon  the  scene  a  priest  who  lighted  a  fire  while 
invoking  the  gods,  a  poet  who  sang  hymns,  and  a 
divine  who  recited  oracles. 

1  Cato,  in  Servius,  V.  755.  Yarro,  L.  L.,  Y.  143.  Festus, 

v.  Rituales. 

2  Diodorus,  XII.  12;  Pausanias,  YII.  2.  Athenæus,  VIII.  62 

'  Herodotus,  V.  42.  4  Thucydides,  Y.  1G;  III.  24. 


184 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  Ill. 


Pausanias  travelled  in  Greece  about  Adrian’s  time. 
In  Messenia  he  had  the  priests  describe  to  him  the 
foundation  of  the  city  of  Messene,  and  he  has  trans¬ 
mitted  this  account  to  us.1  This  event  was  not  very 
ancient;  it  took  place  in  the  time  of  Epaminondas. 
Three  centuries  before,  the  Messenians  had  been  driven 
from  their  country,  and  since  that  time  they  had  lived 
dispersed  among  the  other  Greeks,  without  a  country, 
but  preserving  their  customs  and  their  national  religion 
with  pious  care.  The  Thebans  wished  to  restore  them 
to  Peloponnesus,  in  order  to  place  an  enemy  on  the 
flank  of  the  Spartans;  but  the  most  difficult  thing  was 
to  persuade  the  Messenians.  Epaminondas,  having 
superstitious  men  to  deal  with,  thought  it  his  duty  to 
circulate  an  oracle  predicting  for  this  people  a  return 
to  their  former  country.  Miraculous  apparitions  proved 
to  them  that  their  gods,  who  had  betrayed  them  at 
the  time  of  the  conquest,  had  again  become  favorable. 
This  timid  people  then  decided  to  return  to  the  Pelo¬ 
ponnesus  in  the  train  of  a  Theban  army.  But  the 
question  was,  where  a  city  should  be  built  ;  for  it  would 
not  do  to  think  of  re-occupying  the  old  cities  of  the 
country  :  they  had  been  soiled  by  the  conquest.  To 
choose  the  place  where  they  should  establish  them¬ 
selves,  they  could  not  have  recourse  to  the  Delphian 
oracle,  for  at  this  time  the  Pythia  was  favorable  to  the 
Spartans.  Fortunately,  the  gods  had  other  methods 
of  revealing  their  will.  A  Messenian  priest  had  a 
dream,  in  which  one  of  the  gods  of  his  nation  appeared 
and  directed  him  to  take  his  station  on  Mount  Ithome, 
and  invite  the  people  to  follow  him  there.  The  site  of 
the  new  city  was  thus  indicated,  but  it  was  still  neces 

1  Pausanias,  IV.  27. 


s 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  CITY. 


185 


sary  to  know  the  rites  to  be  performed  at  the  founda¬ 
tion,  for  the  Messenians  had  forgotten  them.  They 
could  not  adopt  those  of  the  Thebans,  or  of  any  other 
people  ;  and  so  they  did  not  know  how  to  build  the 
city.  A  dream,  however,  came  very  opportunely  to 
another  Messenian  ;  the  gods  commanded  him  to  ascend 
Mount  Ithome,  and  find  a  yew  tree  that  stood  near  a 
myrtle,  and  to  dig  into  the  earth  in  that  place.  He 
obeyed,  and  discovered  an  urn,  and  in  this  urn  were 
leaves  of  tin,  on  which  was  found  engraved  the  com¬ 
plete  ritual  of  the  sacred  ceremony.  The  priests 
immediately  copied  it,  and  inscribed  it  in  their  books. 
They  did  not  doubt  that  the  urn  had  been  deposited 
there  by  an  ancient  king  of  the  Messenians,  before  the 
conquest  of  the  country. 

As  soon  as  they  were  in  possession  of  the  ritual  the 
foundation  commenced.  First,  the  priests  offered  a 
sacrifice;  they  invoked  the  ancient  gods  of  the  Messe¬ 
nians,  the  Dioscuri,  the  Jupiter  of  Ithome,  and  the 
ancient  heroes,  ancestors  known  and  venerated.  All 
these  protectors  of  the  country  had  apparently  quitted 
it,  according  to  the  belief  of  the  ancients,  on  the  day 
when  the  enemy  became  masters  of  it.  They  were  en¬ 
treated  to  return.  Formulas  were  pronounced,  which, 
it  was  believed,  would  determine  them  to  inhabit  the 
new  city  in  common  with  the  citizens.  This  was  the 
great  object;  to  fix  the  residence  of  the  gods  with 
themselves  was  what  these  men  had  the  most  at  heart, 
and  we  may  be  sure  that  the  religious  ceremony  had 
no  other  aim.  Just  as  the  companions  of  Romulus 
dug  a  trench  and  thought  to  bury  the  manes  of  their 
ancestors  there,  so  the  contemporaries  of  Epaminondas 
called  to  themselves  their  heroes,  their  divine  ancestors, 
and  the  gods  of  their  country.  They  thought  that 


186 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III, 


by  rites  and  formulas  they  could  attach  these  sacred 
beings  to  the  soil  which  they  themselves  were  going  to 
occupy,  and  could  shut  them  up  within  the  enclosure 
which  themselves  were  about  to  trace,  and  they  said 
to  them,  “Come  with  us,  O  divine  kings,  and  dwell 
with  us  in  this  city.”  The  first  day  was  occupied  with 
these  sacrifices  and  these  prayers.  The  next  day  the 
boundaries  were  traced,  whilst  the  people  sang  religious 
hymns. 

We  are  surprised,  at  first,  when  we  see  in  the  an¬ 
cient  authors  that  there  was  no  city,  however  ancient 
it  might  be,  which  did  not  pretend  to  know  the  name 
of  its  founder  and  the  date  of  its  foundation.  This  is 
because  a  city  could  not  lose  the  recollection  of  the 
sacred  ceremony  which  had  marked  its  birth.  For 
every  year  it  celebrated  the  anniversary  of  this  birth¬ 
day  with  a  sacrifice.  Athens,  as  well  as  Rome,  cele¬ 
brated  its  birthday. 

It  often  happened  that  colonists  or  conquerors  estab¬ 
lished  themselves  in  a  city  already  built.  They  had 
not  to  build  houses,  for  nothing  opposed  their  occupy¬ 
ing  those  of  the  vanquished  ;  but  they  had  to  perform 
the  ceremony  of  foundation  —  that  is,  to  establish  their 
sacred  fires,  and  to  fix  their  national  gods  in  their  new 
home.  This  explains  the  statements  of  Thucydides  and 
Herodotus  that  the  Dorians  founded  Lacedaemon,  and 
the  Ionians  Miletus,  though  these  two  tribes  found  Lace¬ 
daemon  and  Miletus  built  and  already  very  ancient. 

These  usages  show  clearly  what  a  city  was  in  the 
opinion  of  the  ancients.  Surrounded  by  a  sacred  en¬ 
closure,  and  extending  around  an  altar,  it  was  the  reli¬ 
gious  abode  of  gods  and  citizens.  Livy  said  of  Rome, 
“There  is  not  a  place  in  this  city  which  is  not  impreg¬ 
nated  with  religion,  and  which  is  not  occupied  by  some 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  CITY. 


187 


divinity.  The  gods  inhabit  it.”  What  Livy  said  of 
Rome  any  man  might  say  of  his  own  city;  for  if  it  had 
been  founded  according  to  the  rites,  it  had  received 
within  its  walls  protecting  gods  who  were,  as  we  may 
say,  implanted  in  its  soil,  and  could  never  quit  it. 
Every  city  was  a  sanctuary  ;  every  city  might  be  called 
holy.1 

As  the  gods  were  attached  to  a  city  forever,  so  the 
people  could  never  again  abandon  a  place  where  their 
gods  were  established.  In  this  respect  there  was  a 
reciprocal  engagement,  a  sort  of  contract  between  gods 
and  men.  At  one  time  the  tribunes  of  the  people  pro¬ 
posed,  as  Rome,  devastated  by  the  Gauls,  was  no  longer 
anything  but  a  heap  of  ruins,  and  as,  five  leagues  dis¬ 
tant,  there  was  a  city  all  built,  large,  beautiful,  well 
situated,  and  without  inhabitants,  —  since  the  Romans 
had  conquered  it,  —  that  the  people  should  abandon 
the  ruins  of  Rome,  and  remove  to  Yeii.  But  the  pious 
Camillus  replied,  “Our  city  was  religiously  founded  ; 
the  gods  themselves  pointed  out  the  place,  and  took 
up  their  abode  here  with  our  fathers.  Ruined  as  it  is, 
it  still  remains  the  dwelling  of  our  national  gods.” 
And  the  Romans  remained  at  Rome. 

Something  sacred  and  divine  was  naturally  associated 
with  these  cities  which  the  gods  had  founded,2  and 
which  they  continued  to  fill  with  their  presence.  We 
know  that  Roman  traditions  promised  that  Rome 
should  be  eternal.  Every  city  had  similar  traditions. 
The  ancients  built  all  their  cities  to  be  eternal. 

1  ' IXioç  iQtj,  "sqcu  ’sièïiQcu  (Aristoph.,  Knights ,  1319).  Aaxt- 
datuovi  <h'rj  (Theognis,  v.  837)  ;  Uquv  nvXtv ,  says  Theognis,  speak* 
ing  of  Megara. 

2  Neptunia  Troja ,  ôeoô/urjTot  1 A&îjvai .  See  Theognis,  755. 
(Welcker.) 


18b 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  111, 


CHAPTER  V. 

Worship  of  the  Founder.  The  Legend  of  Æneas. 

The  founder  was  the  man  who  accomplished  the 
religious  act  without  which  a  city  could  not  exist. 
He  established  the  hearth  where  the  sacred  fire  was 
eternally  to  burn.  He  it  was,  who,  by  his  prayers  and 
his  rites,  called  the  gods,  and  fixed  them  forever  in 
the  new  city. 

We  can  understand  how  much  respect  would  be  felt 
for  this  holy  man.  During  his  life  men  saw  in  him  the 
author  of  a  religion  and  the  father  of  a  city  ;  after  death 
he  became  a  common  ancestor  for  all  the  generations 
that  succeeded  him.  He  was  for  the  city  what  the 
first  ancestor  was  for  the  family  —  a  Lar  familiar  is. 
His  memory  was  perpetuated  like  the  hearth-fire  which 
he  had  lighted.  Men  established  a  worship  for  hhn,  and 
believed  him  to  be  a  god  ;  and  the  city  adored  him  as 
its  providence.  Sacrifices  and  festivals  were  renewed 
every  year  over  his  tomb.1 

It  is  well  known  that  Romulus  was  worshipped,  and 
that  he  had  a  temple  and  priests.  The  senators  might, 
indeed,  take  his  life;  but  they  could  not  deprive  him 
of  the  worship  to  which  he  had  a  right  as  the  founder 
of  a  city.  In  the  same  manner  every  city  worshipped 
the  one  who  had  founded  it.  Cecrops  and  Theseus, 
who  were  regarded  as  having  been  successive  founders 
of  Athens,  had  temples  there.  Abdera  offered  sao 

1  Pindar,  Pyth .,  V.  129.  Olymp.,  VII.  145.  Cicero,  De  Nat. 
Deor.,  III.  19.  Catullus,  VII.  6. 


CHAP.  V. 


WORSHIP  OF  TIIE  FOUNDER. 


189 

rifices  to  its  founder,  Timesius,  Thera  to  Theras,  Tene- 
dos  to  Tenes,  Delos  to  Anius,  Cyrene  to  Battus,  Miletus 
to  Naleus,  Amphipolis  to  Hagnon.  In  the  time  of 
Pisistratus,  one  Miltiades  went  to  found  a  colony  in  the 
Thracian  Chersonesus  ;  this  colony  instituted  a  worship 
for  him  after  his  death,  “according  to  the  ordinary 
usage.”  Hiero  of  Syracuse,  having  founded  the  town 
of  Ætna,  enjoyed  there,  in  the  course  of  time,  “the 
worship  due  to  founders  of  cities.”  1 

A  city  had  nothing  more  at  heart  than  the  memory 
of  its  foundation.  When  Pausanias  visited  Greece, 
in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  every  city  could  tell 
him  the  name  of  its  founder,  with  his  genealogy  and 
the  principal  facts  of  his  life.  This  name  and  these 
facts  could  not  escape  the  memory,  for  they  were  a 
part  of  the  religion,  and  were  recalled  every  year  in 
the  sacred  ceremonies. 

The  memory  of  a  great  number  of  Greek  poems  has 
been  preserved,  whose  subject  was  the  foundation  of 
a  city.  Philochorus  sang  that  of  Salamis,  Ion  that  of 
Chios,  Crito  that  of  Syracuse,  Zopyrus  that  of  Miletus; 
and  Apollonius,  Ilermogencs,  Hellanicus,  and  Diodes 
composed  poems  or  histories  on  the  same  subject. 
There  was  not,  perhaps,  a  single  city  that  had  not  its 
poem,  or  at  least  its  hymn,  on  the  sacred  act  that  had 
given  it  birth. 

Among  all  these  ancient  poems  which  had  the  sacred 
foundation  of  a  city  for  their  theme,  there  is  one  that 
has  not  been  allowed  to  perish,  because  its  subject  ren¬ 
dered  it  dear  to  a  city,  and  its  beauties  have  rendered 

1  Herodotus,  I.  168;  VI.  38.  Pindar,  Pyth .,  IV.  Thucyd¬ 
ides,  V.  11.  Strabo,  XIV.  1.  Plutarch,  Gr.  Quest.,  20.  Pau¬ 
sanias,  I.  34;  III.  1.  Diodorus,  XI.  78. 


190 


THE  CITY. 


BOOR  III. 


it  precious  to  all  nations  and  all  ages.  We  know  that 
Æneas  founded  Lavinium,  whence  sprang  the  Albans 
and  the  Romans,  and  that,  consequently,  he  was  re¬ 
garded  as  the  first  founder  of  Rome.  There  had  been 
clustered  about  him  a  multitude  of  traditions,  which 
we  find  already  recorded  in  the  verses  of  old  Naevius, 
and  in  the  histories  of  Cato  the  Elder,  when  Virgil 
seized  upon  this  subject  and  wrote  the  national  poem 
of  the  Roman  city. 

The  arrival  of  Æneas,  or  rather  the  removal  of  the 
gods  of  Troy  into  Italy,  is  the  subject  of  the  Æneid. 
The  poem  sings  this  man,  who  traversed  the  seas  to 
found  a  city  and  transport  his  gods  to  Latium:  — 

“  Dum  conderet  urbem 
Inferretque  Deos  Latio.” 

We  must  not  judge  the  Æneid  after  our  modern  ideas. 
Men  often  complain  at  not  finding  in  Æneas  bravery, 
dash,  passion.  They  tire  of  that  epithet  of  pious  which 
is  continually  repeated.  They  are  astonished  to  see 
this  warrior  consulting  his  Penates  with  a  care  so  scru¬ 
pulous,  invoking  some  divinity  at  every  new  turn  of 
affairs,  raising  his  arms  to  heaven  when  he  ought  to  be 
fighting,  allowing  himself  to  be  tossed  over  all  seas  by 
the  oracles,  and  shedding  tears  at  the  sight  of  danger. 
Nor  do  they  fail  to  reproach  him  with  coldness  to¬ 
wards  Dido  ;  and  they  are  tempted  to  say,  with  the 
unhappy  queen, — 

“  Nullis  ille  movetur 

Eletibus,  aut  voces  ullas  tractabilis  audit.” 

But  this  is  because  there  is  no  place  here  for  a 
warrior,  or  a  hero  of  romance.  The  poet  wishes  to 
represent  a  priest.  Æneas  is  the  chief  of  a  worship,  a 


CHAP.  V. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  ÆNEAS. 


191 


holy  man,  the  divine  founder,  whose  mission  is  to  save 
the  Penates  of  the  city. 

“  Sum  pius  Æneas,  raptos  qui  ex  hoste  Penates 
Classe  veho  mecum.” 

His  dominant  quality  ought  to  be  piety,  and  the 
epithet  which  the  poet  oftenest  applies  to  him  is  that 
which  becomes  him  best.  His  virtue  ought  to  be  a 
cold  and  lofty  impersonality,  making  of  him,  not  a  man, 
but  an  instrument  of  the  gods.  Why  should  we  look 
for  passion  in  him?  He  has  no  right  to  the  passions.; 
or,  at  any  rate,  he  should  confine  them  in  the  depths 
of  his  heart. 

“  Multa  gemens  multoque  animum  labefactus  amore, 

Jussa  tamen  Divum  insequitur.” 

Already,  in  Homer,  Æneas  was  a  holy  personage,  a 
high  priest,  whom  the  people  venerated  as  a  god,  and 
whom  Jupiter  preferred  to  Hector.  In  Virgil  he  is 
the  guardian  and  savior  of  the  Trojan  gods.  During 
the  night  that  completed  the  ruin  of  the  city,  Hector 
appeared  to  him  in  a  dream,  and  said  to  him,  “  Troy 
confides  its  gods  to  thee;  search  out  a  new  city  for 
them.”  At  the  same  time  he  committed  to  him  the 
sacred  things,  the  protecting  statues,  and  the  sacred  fire 
that  was  never  to  be  extinguished.  This  dream  is  not 
simply  an  ornament  placed  there  by  the  fancy  of  the 
poet.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  foundation  on  which 
the  entire  poem  rests  ;  for  it  is  through  this  that  Æneas 
becomes  the  depositary  of  the  city  gods,  and  that  his 
holy  mission  is  revealed  to  him. 

The  urbs  of  the  Trojans,  the  material  part  of  Troy,  has 
perished,  but  not  the  Trojan  civitas  ;  thanks  to  Æneas, 
the  sacred  fire  is  not  extinguished,  and  the  gods 
have  still  a  worship.  The  city  and  the  gods  are  with 


192 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


Æneas  ;  they  cross  the  seas,  and  seek  a  country  where 
it  is  permitted  them  to  stop. 

“  Considéré  Teucros 

Errantesque  Deos  agitataque  numina  Trojæ.” 

Æneas  seeks  a  fixed  home,  small  though  it  be,  for 
his  paternal  gods, — 

‘  Dis  sedem  exiguam  patriis.” 

But  the  choice  of  this  home,  to  which  the  destiny  of 
the  city  shall  be  forever  bound,  does  not  depend  upon 
men  ;  it  belongs  to  the  gods.  Æneas  consults  the  priest 
and  interrogates  the  oracles.  He  does  not  himself 
determine  his  route  or  his  object  ;  he  is  directed  by 
the  divinity  :  — 

“  Italiara  non  sponte  sequor.” 

He  would  have  staid  in  Thrace,  in  Crete,  in  Sicily, 
at  Carthage  with  Dido  :  Fata  obstant.  Between  him 
and  his  desire  of  rest,  between  him  and  his  love, 
there  always  comes  the  will  of  the  gods,  the  revealed 
word  —  fata. 

We  must  not  deceive  ourselves  in  this:  the  real 
hero  of  the  poem  is  not  Æneas;  the  gods  of  Troy 
take  the  place  of  a  hero;  the  same  gods  that,  one  day, 
are  to  be  those  of  Rome.  The  subject  of  the  Æneid 
is  the  struggle  of  the  Roman  gods  against  a  hostile 
divinity.  Obstacles  of  every  kind  are  placed  in  their 
way. 

“  Tantæ  molis  erat  Romanam  condere  genteml  ’ 

The  tempest  comes  near  ingulfing  them,  the  love  of 
a  woman  almost  enslaves  them;  but  they  triumph  over 
everything,  and  arrive  at  the  object  sought. 

“  Fata  viam  inveniunt.” 


s 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  GODS  OP  THE  CITY. 


193 


Things  like  these  would  interest  the  Romans  to  a 
wonderful  degree.  In  this  poem  they  saw  themselves, 
their  founder,  their  city,  their  institutions,  their  religion, 
their  empire.  For  without  those  gods  the  Roman  city 
would  not  have  existed.1 


CHAPTER  YI. 

The  Gods  of  the  City 

We  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that,  among  the 
ancients,  what  formed  the  bond  of  every  society  was  a 
worship.  Just  as  a  domestic  altar  held  the  members  of 
a  family  grouped  around  it,  so  the  city  was  the  collec¬ 
tive  group  of  those  who  had  the  same  protecting 
deities,  and  who  performed  the  religious  ceremony  at 
the  same  altar. 

This  city  altar  was  enclosed  within  a  building  which 
the  Greeks  called  prytaneum,  and  which  the  Romans 
palled  temple  of  Vesta.* 

1  We  need  not  inquire  here  if  the  legend  of  Æneas  repre¬ 
sents  a  real  fact;  that  it  was  believed  is  enough  for  us.  It  shows 
as  how  the  ancients  looked  upon  the  founder  of  a  city,  what  idea 
they  had  of  a  penatiger  ;  and  for  us  this  is  the  important  point. 
We  may  add.  that  several  cities  in  Thrace,  in  Crete,  in  Epirus, 
at  Cythera,  at  Zacynthus,  in  Sicily,  and  in  Italy  looked  upon 
Æneas  as  their  founder,  and  worshipped  him  as  such. 

8  The  prytaneum  contained  the  common  hearth  of  the  city  : 
Dion  of  Halicarnasssus,  II.  23.  Pollux,  I.  7.  Scholiast  of  Pindar, 
New,.,  XI.  Scholiast  of  Thucydides,  II.  15.  There  wras  a  pryta¬ 
neum  in  every  Greek  city  :  Herodotus,  III.  57  ;  V.  67  ;  VII. 
197.  Polyb.,  XXIX.  5.  Appian,  Mithridatic  War,  23;  Punû 
War ,  84.  Diodorus,  XX.  101.  Cicero,  De  Signis,  53.  Dio- 

13 


194 


THE  cixr. 


BOOK  III. 


There  was  nothing  more  sacred  within  the  city  than 
this  altar,  on  which  the  sacred  fire  was  always  main¬ 
tained. 

This  great  veneration,  it  is  true,  became  weakened 
in  Greece,  at  a  very  early  date,  because  the  Greek  im¬ 
agination  allowed  itself  to  be  turned  aside  by  more 
splendid  temples,  richer  legends,  and  more  beautiful 
statues.  But  it  never  became  enfeebled  at  Rome. 
The  Romans  never  abandoned  the  conviction  that  the 
destiny  of  the  city  was  connected  with  this  fire  which 
represented  their  gods.  The  respect  which  they  had 
for  their  vestals  proves  the  importance  of  their  priest¬ 
hood.  If  a  consul  met  one  of  them,  he  ordered  his 
fasces  to  be  lowered  before  her.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  one  of  them  allowed  the  fire  to  go  out,  or  sullied  the 
worship  by  failing  in  her  duty  of  chastity,  the  city,  which 
then  believed  itself  threatened  with  the  loss  of  its  gods, 
took  vengeance  upon  her  by  burying  her  alive. 

One  day  the  temple  of  Vesta  came  near  being  burned 
in  a  conflagration  of  the  surrounding  houses.  Rome 
was  in  consternation,  for  it  felt  all  its  future  to  be  in 
peril.  When  the  danger  had  passed,  the  senate  in¬ 
structed  the  consul  to  search  out  the  authors  of  the 
fire,  and  the  consul  made  accusations  against  several 
inhabitants  of  Capua,  who  happened  at  that  time  to  be 
in  Rome.  This  was  not  because  lie  had  any  proof 
against  them,  but  he  reasoned  in  this  manner:  “A 
conflagration  has  threatened  the  hearth  of  our  city; 
this  conflagration,  which  might  have  destroyed  our 

nysius,  II.  65.  Pausanias,  I.  42  ;  V.  25;  VIII.  9.  Athenæus,  I. 
58;  X.  24.  Boeekh,  Corp.  lnscr .,  1193.  At  Rome  the  temple 
of  Vesta  was  nothing  more  than  a  hearth.  Cicero,  De  Legib ., 
II.  8;  II.  12.  Ovid,  Fast.,  VI.  297.  Florus,  I.  2.  Livy, 
XXVIII.  31. 


CHAP.  VI, 


THi  GODS  OF  THE  CITY. 


11)5 


grandeur  and  stopped  oar  progress,  could  have  been 
started  only  by  the  hands  of  our  most  cruel  enemies. 
Now,  we  have  no  more  determined  enemies  than  the 
inhabitants  of  Capua,  this  city  which  is  now  the  ally  of 
Hannibal,  and  which  aspires  to  take  our  place  as  the 
capital  of  Italy.  These,  therefore,  are  the  men  who 
have  attempted  to  destroy  our  temple  of  Vesta,  our 
eternal  fire,  this  gage  and  guarantee  of  our  future 
grandeur.”  1  Thus  a  consul,  under  the  influence  of  his 
religious  ideas,  believed  that  the  enemies  of  Rome  could 
find  no  surer  means  of  conquering  it  than  by  destroying 
its  sacred  hearth.  Here  we  see  the  belief  of  the  an¬ 
cients;  the  public  fire  was  the  sanctuary  of  the  city, 
the  cause  of  its  being,  and  its  constant  preserver. 

Just  as  the  worship  of  the  domestic  hearth  was  secret, 
and  the  family  alone  had  the  right  to  take  part  in  it, 
so  the  -worship  of  the  public  fire  was  concealed  from 
strangers.  No  one,  unless  he  were  a  citizen,  could  take 
part  at  a  sacrifice.  Even  the  look  of  a  stranger  sullied 
the  religious  act.2 

Every  city  had  gods  who  belonged  to  it  alone. 
These  gods  were  generally  of  the  same  nature  as  those 
of  the  primitive  religion  of  families.  They  were  called 
Lares,  Penates,  Genii,  Demons,  Heroes-3  under  all 
these  names  were  human  souls  deified.  For  we  have 
seen  that,  in  the  Indo-European  race,  man  had  at  first 
worshipped  the  invisible  and  immortal  power  which  he 
felt  in  himself.  These  genii,  or  heroes,  were,  moi  a  gen¬ 
erally,  the  ancestors  of  the  people.4 

1  Livy,  XXVI.  27. 

2  Virgil,  III.  108.  Pausanias,  V.  15.  Appian,  Civil  Wars, 
l.  54. 

3  Ovid,  Fast.,  II.  G16. 

4  Plutarch,  Aristides ,  11. 


196 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


The  bodies  were  buried  either  in  the  city  itself  or 
upon  its  territory;  and  as,  according  to  the  belief  which 
we  have  already  described,  the  soul  did  not  quit  the 
body,  it  followed  that  these  divine  dead  were  attached 
to  the  soil  where  their  bodies  were  buried.  From  their 
graves  they  watched  over  the  city;  they  protected  the 
country,  and  were,  in  some  sort,  its  chiefs  and  masters. 
This  expression  of  chiefs  of  the  country,  applied  to  the 
dead,  is  found  in  an  oracle  addressed  by  the  Pythia  to 
Solon  :  “  Honor  with  a  worship  the  chiefs  of  the  coun¬ 
try,  the  dead  who  live  under  the  earth.” 1  These 
notions  came  from  the  very  great  power  which  the 
ancient  generations  attributed  to  the  human  soul  after 
death.  Every  man  who  had  rendered  a  great  service 
to  the  city,  from  the  one  who  had  founded  it  to  the  one 
who  had  given  it  a  victory,  or  had  improved  its  laws, 
became  a  god  for  that  city.  It  was  not  even  necessary 
for  one  to  have  been  a  great  man  or  a  benefactor  ;  it 
was  enough  to  have  struck  the  imagination  of  his  con¬ 
temporaries,  and  to  have  rendered  himself  the  subject 
of  a  popular  tradition,  to  become  a  hero  —  that  is  to 
say,  one  of  the  powerful  dead,  whose  protection  was  to 
be  desired  and  whose  anger  was  to  be  feared.  The 
Thebans  continued  during  ten  centuries  to  offer  sac¬ 
rifices  to  Eteocles  and  Polynices.  The  inhabitants  of 
Acanthus  worshipped  a  Persian  who  had  died  among 
them  during  the  expedition  of  Xerxes.  Ilippolytus 
was  venerated  as  a  god  at  Trcezene.  Pyrrhus,  son  of 
Achilles,  was  a  god  at  Delphi  only  because  he  died  and 
was  buried  there.  Crotona  worshipped  a  hero  for  the 
sole  reason  that  during  his  life  he  had  been  the  hand¬ 
somest  man  in  the  city.2  Athens  adored  as  one  of  its 

1  Plutarch,  Solon ,  9. 

8  Pausanias,  IX.  18.  Herodotus,  VII.  117.  Diodorus,  IV. 


CD  AP.  VI. 


THE  GODS  OF  THE  CITY. 


197 


protectors  Eurystheus,  though  he  was  an  Argive  ;  but 
Euripides  explains  the  origin  of  this  worship  when  he 
brings  Eurystheus  upon  the  stage,  about  to  die,  and 
makes  him  say  to  the  Athenians,  “Bury  me  in  Attica. 
I  will  be  propitious  to  you,  and  in  the  bosom  of  the 
ground  I  will  be  for  your  country  a  protecting  guest.”  1 
The  entire  tragedy  of  Œdipus  Coloneus  rests  upon 
this  belief.  Athens  and  Thebes  contend  over  the  body 
of  a  man  who  is  about  to  die,  and  who  will  become 
a  god. 

It  was  a  great  piece  of  good  fortune  for  a  city  to 
possess  the  bodies  of  men  of  some  mark.2  Mantinea 
spoke  with  pride  of  the  bones  of  Areas,  Thebes  of  those 
of  Geryon,  Messene  of  those  of  Aristomenes.3  To  pro¬ 
cure  these  precious  relics,  ruse  was  sometimes  resorted 
to.  Herodotus  relates  by  what  unfair  means  the  Spar¬ 
tans  carried  off  the  bones  of  Orestes.4  These  bones, 
it  is  true,  to  which  the  soul  of  a  hero  was  attached, 
gave  the  Spartans  a  victory  immediately.  As  soon  as 
Athens  had  acquired  power,  the  first  use  she  made  of 
it  was  to  seize  upon  the  bones  of  Theseus,  who  had 
been  buried  in  the  Isle  of  Scyros,  and  to  build  a  temple 
for  them  in  the  city,  in  order  to  increase  the  number  of 
her  protecting  deities. 

Besides  these  gods  and  heroes,  men  had  gods  of  an¬ 
other  species,  like  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  towards 
whom  the  aspect  of  nature  had  directed  their  thoughts  ; 
but  we  have  seen  that  these  creations  of  human  intelli- 

62.  Pausanias,  X.  23.  Pindar,  Nem .,  66.  Herodotus,  V. 
47. 

1  Eurip.,  Ileracl.  1032. 

8  Pausanias,  I.  43.  Polyb.,  VIII.  30.  Plautus, Trin.y  II.  2,  14. 

3  Pausanias,  IV.  32;  VIII.  9. 

4  Herodotus,  I.  68. 


198 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


gence  hail  for  a  long  time  the  character  of  domestic  or 
local  divinities.  At  first  men  did  not  conceive  of  these 
gods  as  watching  over  the  whole  human  race.  They  be¬ 
lieved  that  each  one  of  them  belonged  in  particular  to 
a  family  or  a  city. 

Thus  it  was  customary  for  each  city,  without  count¬ 
ing  its  heroes,  to  have  a  Jupiter,  a  Minerva,  or  some 
other  divinity  which  it  had  associated  with  its  first 
Penates  and  its  sacred  fire.  Thus  there  were  in  Greece 
and  in  Italy  a  multitude  of  city-guarding  divinities. 
Each  city  had  its  gods,  who  lived  within  its  walls.1 

The  names  of  many  of  these  divinities  are  forgotten; 
it  is  by  chance  that  there  have  remained  the  names  of 
the  god  Satrapes,  who  belonged  to  the  city  of  Elis, 
of  the  goddess  Dindymene  at  Thebes,  of  Soteira  at 
Ægium,  of  Britomartis  in  Crete,  of  Hyblæa  at  Hybla. 
The  names  of  Zeus,  Athene,  Hera,  Jupiter,  Minerva, 
and  Neptune  are  better  known  to  us,  and  we  know 
that  they  were  often  applied  to  these  city-guarding 
divinities  ;  but  because  two  cities  happened  to  appl}- 
the  same  name  to  their  god,  we  are  not  to  conclude 
that  they  adored  the  same  god.  There  was  an  Athene 
at  Athens,  and  there  was  one  at  Sparta;  but  they  were 
two  goddesses.  A  great  number  of  cities  had  a  Jupi¬ 
ter  as  a  city -protecting  divinity.  There  were  as  many 
Jupiters  as  there  were  cities.  In  the  legend  of  the 
Trojan  war  we  see  a  Pallas  who  fights  for  the  Greeks, 
and  there  is  among  the  Trojans  another  Pallas,  who 
receives  their  worship  and  protects  her  worshippers.5 

1  Herodotus,  V.  82.  Sophocles,  Phil.,  134.  Thucyd,  II.  71. 
Eurip.,  Plectra,  674.  Pausanias,  I.  24;  IV.  8;  VIII.  47. 
Aristoph.,  Birds,  828;  Knights,  577.  Virgil,  IX.  246.  Pollux. 
IX.  40.  Apollodorus,  III.  14. 

8  Homer,  Iliad,  VI.  88. 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  GOJDS  OF  THE  CITY. 


199 


Would  any  one  say  that  it  was  the  same  divinity  who 
figured  in  both  armies  ?  Certainly  not  ;  for  the  ancients 
did  not  attribute  the  gift  of  ubiquity  to  their  gods. 
The  cities  of  Argos  and  Samos  had  each  a  Here  Polias, 
but  it  was  not  the  same  goddess,  for  she  was  represented 
in  the  two  cities  with  very  different  attributes.  There 
was  at  Rome  a  Juno;  at  a  distance  of  five  leagues,  the 
city  of  Yeii  had  another.  So  little  were  they  the  same 
divinity  that  we  see  the  dictator  Camillus,  while  be¬ 
sieging  Veii,  address  himself  to  the  Juno  of  the  enemy, 
to  induce  her  to  abandon  the  Etruscan  city  and  pass 
into  his  camp.  When  he  is  master  of  the  city,  he  takes 
the  statue,  well  persuaded  that  he  gains  possession  of 
the  goddess  at  the  same  time,  and  devoutly  transports 
it  to  Rome.  From  that  time  Rome  had  two  protect¬ 
ing  Junos.  There  is  a  similar  history,  a  few  years 
later,  of  a  Jupiter  that  another  dictator  took  from  Præ- 
neste,  though  at  that  time  Rome  already  had  three  or 
four  of  them  at  home.1 

The  city  which  possessed  a  divinity  of  its  own  did 
not  wish  strangers  to  be  protected  by  it,  or  to  adore  it. 
More  commonly  a  temple  was  accessible  only  to  citi¬ 
zens.  The  Argives  alone  had  the  right  to  enter  the 
temple  of  Hera  at  Argos.  To  enter  that  of  Athene  at 
Athens,  one  had  to  be  an  Athenian.2  The  Romans  who 
adored  two  Junos  at  home  could  not  enter  the  temple 
of  a  third  Juno,  who  was  in  the  little  city  of  Lanu- 
vium.3 

We  should  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  an¬ 
cients  never  represented  God  to  themselves  as  a  unique 
being  exercising  his  action  upon  the  universe.  Each  of 

1  Livy,  V.  21,  22;  VÏ.  29.  2  Herodotus,  VI.  81;  V.  72. 

3  They  acquired  this  right  only  by  conquest.  Livy,  VIII.  14. 


200 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK.  III. 


their  innumerable  gods  had  his  little  domain  ;  to  one  a 
family  belonged,  to  another  a  tribe,  to  a  third  a  city. 
Such  was  the  world  which  sufhced  for  the  providence 
of  each  of  them.  As  to  the  god  of  the  human  race,  a  few 
philosophers  had  an  idea  of  him  ;  the  mysteries  of 
Eleusis  might  have  afforded  a  glimpse  of  him  to  the 
most  intelligent  of  the  initiated;  but  the  vulgar  never 
believed  in  such  a  god.  For  ages  man  understood  the 
divine  being  only  as  a  force  which  protected  him  per¬ 
sonally,  and  every  man,  or  every  group  of  men,  desired 
to  have  a  god.  Even  to-day,  among  the  descendants 
of  those  Greeks,  we  see  rude  peasants  pray  to  the  saints 
with  fervor,  while  it  is  doubtful  if  they  have  the  idea 
of  a  god.  Each  one  of  them  wishes  to  have,  among 
these  saints,  a  particular  protector,  a  special  providence. 
At  Naples,  each  quarter  of  the  city  has  its  Madonna; 
the  lazzaroni  kneel  before  that  of  their  own  street, 
while  they  insult  that  of  the  neighboring  street:  it  is 
not  rare  to  see  two  facchini  wrangle,  and  even  fight 
with  knives,  in  defence  of  the  merits  of  their  respective 
Madonnas.  These  cases  are  exceptions  to-day,  and  are 
found  only  among  certain  peoples  and  in  certain  classes. 
They  were  the  rule  among  the  ancients. 

Each  city  had  its  corps  of  priests,  who  depended 
upon  no  foreign  authority.  Between  the  priests  of 
two  cities  there  was  no  bond,  no  communication,  no 
exchange  of  instruction  or  of  rites.  If  one  passed  from 
one  city  to  another,  he  found  other  gods,  other  dogmas* 
other  ceremonies.  The  ancients  had  books  of  liturgies» 
but  those  of  one  city  did  not  resemble  those  of  another. 
Every  city  had  its  collection  of  prayers  and  practices, 
which  were  kept  very  secret  ;  it  would  have  thought 
itself  in  danger  of  compromising  its  religion  and  its 
destiny  by  opening  this  collection  to  strangers.  Thus 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  GODS  OF  THE  CITY- 


201 


religion  was  entirely  local,  entirely  civic,  taking  this 
word  in  the  ancient  sense  —  that  is  to  say,  special  to 
each  city.1 

Generally  a  man  knew  only  the  gods  of  his  own  city, 
and  honored  and  respected  them  alone.  Each  one 
could  say  what,  in  a  tragedy  of  Æschylus,  a  stranger 
said  to  the  Argives  —  “  I  fear  not  the  gods  of  your  coun¬ 
try  ;  I  owe  them  nothing.”  2 

Every  city  looked  to  its  gods  for  safety.  Men  in¬ 
voked  them  in  danger,  and  thanked  them  in  victory. 
Often  defeat  was  attributed  to  them  ;  and  they  were 
reproached  for  having  badly  fulfilled  their  duty  as 
defenders  of  the  city.  Men  even  went  so  far,  some¬ 
times,  as  to  overturn  their  altars  and  stone  their 
temples.3 

Ordinarily,  these  gods  took  good  care  of  the  city 
whose  worship  they  received  ;  and  this  was  quite  nat¬ 
ural  :  these  gods  were  eager  for  offerings,  and  they 
received  victims  only  from  their  own  city.  If  they 
wished  the  continuation  of  the  sacrifices  and  heca¬ 
tombs,  it  was  very  necessary  that  they  should  watch 
over  the  city’s  safety.4  See,  in  Virgil,  how  Juno 
“strove  and  labored”  that  her  Carthage  might  one  day 
obtain  the  empire  of  the  world.  Each  of  these  gods, 
like  the  Juno  of  Virgil,  had  the  grandeur  of  his  city 
at  heart.  These  gods  had  the  same  interests  as  the 
citizens  themselves,  and  in  times  of  war  marched  to 
battle  in  the  midst  of  them.  In  Euripides  we  see  a 
personage  who  says,  on  the  eve  of  battle,  “  The  gods 

1  There  existed  worships  common  to  several  cities  only  in  the 
2ase  of  confederations.  We  shall  speak  of  them  elsewhere. 

2  Æschylus,  Suppl .,  858. 

3  Sueto  hus,  Calig.,  5;  Seneca,  De  Vita  Beata,  36. 

4  This  idea  is  often  found  among  the  ancients.  Theognis,  759. 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  111. 


who  fight  with  us  are  more  powerful  than  those  who 
are  on  the  side  of  the  enemy.”  1  The  Æginctans  never 
commenced  a  campaign  without  carrying  with  them 
the  statues  of  their  national  heroes,  the  Æacidæ. 
The  Spartans  in  all  their  expeditions  carried  with  them 
the  Tyndaridæ.2  In  the  combat  the  gods  and  the 
citizens  mutually  sustained  each  other,  and  if  they  con¬ 
quered,  it  was  because  all  had  done  their  duty. 

If  a  city  was  conquered,  the  gods  were  supposed  to 
have  been  vanquished  with  it.3  If  a  city  was  taken, 
its  gods  themselves  were  captives. 

On  this  last  point,  it  is  true,  opinions  were  uncertain 
and  diverse.  Many  were  persuaded  that  a  city  never 
could  be  taken  so  long  as  its  gods  remained  in  it. 
When  Æneas  sees  the  Greeks  masters  of  Troy,  he 
cries  that  the  gods  have  departed,  deserting  their  tem¬ 
ples  and  their  altars.  In  Æschylus,  the  chorus  of 
Thebans  expresses  the  same  belief  when,  at  the  approach 
of  the  enemy,  it  implores  the  gods  not  to  abandon 
the  city.4 

According  to  this  opinion,  in  order  to  take  a  city 
it  was  necessary  to  make  the  gods  leave  it.  For  this 
purpose  the  Romans  employed  a  certain  formula  which 
they  had  in  their  rituals,  and  which  Macrobius  has  pre¬ 
served  :  “O  thou  great  one,  who  hast  this  city  under 
thy  protection,  I  pray  thee,  I  adore  thee,  I  ask  of  thee 
as  a  favor,  to  abandon  this  city  and  this  people,  to  quit 
these  temples,  these  sacred  places,  and,  having  sepa¬ 
rated  thyself  from  them,  to  come  to  Rome,  to  me  and 
mine.  May  our  city,  our  temples,  and  our  sacred  places 
be  more  agreeable  and  more  dear  to  thee  ;  take  us  under 


1  Euripides,  Hcracl .,  347.  *  Herodotus,  V.  65;  Y.  80. 

*  Virgil,  Æn.y  I.  68.  4  Æsch.,  Sept.  Coni.  Theb 202 


CHAP.  YI. 


THE  GODS  OF  THE  CITY. 


203 


thy  protection.  If  thou  doest  this,  I  will  found  a 
temple  in  thine  honor.”  1  Now,  the  ancients  were 
convinced  that  there  were  formulas  so  efficacious  and 
powerful,  that,  if  one  pronounced  them  exactly  and 
without  changing  a  single  word,  the  god  could  not  re¬ 
sist  the  request  of  men.  The  god  thus  called  upon 
passed  over,  therefore,  to  the  side  of  the  enemy,  and 
the  city  was  taken. 

In  Greece  we  find  the  same  opinions  and  similar 
customs.  Even  in  the  time  of  Thucydides,  when  the 
Greeks  besieged  a  city,  they  never  failed  to  address  an 
invocation  to  its  gods,  that  they  might  permit  it  to  be 
taken.2  Ofven,  instead  of  employing  a  formula  to  at¬ 
tract  the  goa,  the  Greeks  preferred  to  carry  off  its 
statue  by  stealth.  Everybody  knows  the  legend  of 
Ulysses’  carrying  off  the  Pallas  of  the  Trojans.  At 
another  time  the  Æginetans,  wishing  to  make  war  upon 
Epidaurus,  commenced  by  carrying  off  two  protecting 
statues  of  that  city,  and  transported  them  to  their  own 
city.a 

Herodotus  relates  that  the  Athenians  wished  to  make 
war  upon  the  Æginetans,  but  the  enterprise  was  hazard¬ 
ous,  for  Ægina  had  a  protecting  hero  of  great  power  and 
of  singular  fidelity  ;  this  was  Æacus.  The  Athenians, 
after  having  studied  the  matter  over,  put  off  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  their  design  for  thirty  years  ;  at  the  same  time 
they  built  in  their  own  country  a  chapel  to  this  same 
Æacus,  and  devoted  a  worship  to  him.  They  were 
persuaded  that  if  this  worship  was  continued  without 
interruption  during  thirty  years,  the  god  would  belong 
no  longer  to  the  Æginetans,  but  to  themselves.  In¬ 
deed,  it  seemed  to  them  that  a  god  could  not  accept 

1  Macrobius,  III.  9.  2  Thucydides,  II.  74. 

3  Herodotus,  V.  83. 


204 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


fat  victims  for  so  long  a  time  without  placing  himself 
under  obligations  to  those  who  had  offered  them. 
Æacus,  therefore,  would  in  the  end  be  forced  to  aban¬ 
don  the  interests  of  the  Æginetans,  and  to  give  the 
victory  to  the  Athenians.1 

Here  is  another  case  from  Plutarch.  Solon  desired 
that  Athens  might  become  mistress  of  the  little  Isle  of 
Salamis,  which  then  belonged  to  the  Megarians.  He 
consulted  the  oracle.  The  oracle  answered,  “If  you 
wish  to  conquer  the  isle,  you  must  first  gain  the  favor 
of  the  heroes  who  protect  it  and  who  inhabit  it.” 
Solon  obeyed  ;  in  the  name  of  Athens  he  offered  sac¬ 
rifices  to  the  two  principal  heroes  of  Salamis.  These 
heroes  did  not  resist  the  gifts  that  were  offered  them, 
but  went  over  to  the  Athenian  side,  and  the  isle,  de¬ 
prived  of  protectors,  was  conquered.2 

In  time  of  war,  if  the  besiegers  sought  to  gain  pos¬ 
session  of  the  divinities  of  the  city,  the  besieged,  on 
their  part,  did  their  best  to  retain  them.  Sometimes 
they  bound  the  god  with  chains,  to  prevent  him  from 
deserting.  At  other  times  they  concealed  him  from  all 
eyes,  that  the  enemy  might  not  find  him.  Or,  still 
again,  they  opposed  to  the  formula  by  which  the  enemy 
attempted  to  bribe  the  god  another  formula  which  had 
the  power  to  retain  him.  The  Romans  had  imagined 
a  means  which  seemed  to  them  to  be  surer;  they  kept 
secret  the  name  of  the  principal  and  most  powerful  of 
their  protecting  gods.3  They  thought  that,  as  the 
enemy  could  never  call  this  god  by  his  name,  he  would 
never  abandon  their  side,  and  that  their  city  would 
never  be  taken. 

We  see  by  this  what  a  singular  idea  the  ancients  had 

1  Herodotus,  V.  89.  2  Plutarch.  Solon ,  9. 

3  Macrobiu8.  III. 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY.  *205 

of  the  gods.  It  was  a  long  time  before  they  conceived 
the  Divinity  as  a  supreme  power.  Every  family  had  its 
domestic  religion,  every  city  had  its  national  religion. 
A  city  was  like  a  little  church,  all  complete,  which  had 
its  gods,  its  dogmas,  and  its  worship.  These  beliefs 
appear  very  crude  to  us,  but  they  were  those  of  the 
most  intellectual  people  of  ancient  times,  and  have  ex¬ 
ercised  upon  this  people  and  upon  the  Romans  so  im¬ 
portant  an  influence  that  the  greater  part  of  their 
laws,  of  their  institutions,  and  of  their  history  is  from 
this  source. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

The  Religion  of  the  City. 

1.  The  Public  Repasts. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  principal  ceremony 
of  the  domestic  worship  was  a  repast,  which  they  called 
a  sacrifice.  To  eat  food  prepared  upon  an  altar  was, 
to  all  appearance,  the  first  form  which  men  gave  to 
the  religious  act.  The  need  of  putting  themselves  in 
communion  with  the  divinity  was  satisfied  by  this 
repast,  to  which  they  invited  him,  and  of  which  they 
gave  him  his  part. 

The  principal  ceremony  of  the  city  worship  was  also 
a  repast  of  this  nature  ;  it  was  partaken  of  in  common 
by  all  the  citizens,  in  honor  of  the  protecting  divinities. 
The  celebrating  of  these  public  repasts  was  universal 
in  Greece  ;  and  men  believed  that  the  safety  of  the 
city  depended  upon  their  accomplishment.1 


1  2wT>lQia  tiov  7rokèo)v  ovrôemva.  Athenæus,  V.  2. 


206 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IU 


The  Odyssey  gives  us  a  description  of  one  of  these 
sacred  feasts  :  Nine  long  tables  are  spread  for  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  Pylos  ;  at  each  one  of  them  five  hundred  citizens 
are  seated,  and  each  group  has  immolated  nine  bulls  in 
honor  of  the  gods.  This  repast,  which  was  called  the 
feast  of  the  gods,  begins  and  ends  with  libations  and 
prayers.1  The  ancient  custom  of  repasts  in  common  is 
also  mentioned  in  the  oldest  Athenian  traditions.  It 
is  related  that  Orestes,  the  murderer  of  his  mother, 
arrived  at  Athens  at  the  very  moment  when  the  city, 
assembled  about  its  king,  was  performing  the  sacred 
act.2 

The  public  meals  of  Sparta  are  well  known,  but  the 
idea  which  men  ordinarily  entertain  of  them  is  very  far 
from  the  truth.  They  imagine  the  Spartans  living  and 
eating  always  in  common,  as  if  private  life  had  not  been 
known  among  them.  We  know,  on  the  contrary,  from 
ancient  authors,  that  the  Spartans  often  took  their  meals 
in  their  own  houses,  in  the  midst  of  their  families.3  The 
public  meals  took  place  twice  a  month,  without  reckon¬ 
ing  holidays.  These  were  religious  acts  of  the  same 
nature  as  those  which  were  practised  at  Athens,  in 
Argos,  and  throughout  Greece.4 

Besides  these  immense  banquets,  where  all  the  citi¬ 
zens  were  assembled,  and  which  could  take  place  only 
on  solemn  festivals,  religion  prescribed  that  every  day 

% 

1  Homer,  Odyssey .  III.  *  Athenæus,  X.  49. 

3  Athenæus,  IV.  17;  IV.  21.  Herodotus,  VI.  57.  Plutarch, 
Cleomenes,  13. 

4  This  custom  is  attested,  for  Athens,  by  Xenophon,  Gov. 
Ath.,  2;  Schol.  on  Aristophanes,  Clouds ,  393;  — for  Crete  and 
Thessaly,  Athenæus,  IV.  22;  —  for  Argos,  Boeckh,  1122;—  for 
other  cities,  Pindar,  Nem.,  XI.;  Theognis,  2G9  ;  Pausanias,  V 
15;  Athenæus,  IV.  32;  IV.  61  ;  X.  24  and  25;  X.  49;  XI.  66. 


CHAP.  VIZ.  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY. 


207 


there  should  be  a  sacred  meal.  For  this  purpose,  men 
chosen  by  the  city,  were  required  to  eat  together,  in 
its  name,  within  the  enclosure  of  the  prytaneum,  in  the 
presence  of  the  sacred  fire  and  the  protecting  gods.  The 
Greeks  were  convinced  that,  if  this  repast  was  inter¬ 
rupted  but  for  a  single  day,  the  state  was  menaced 
with  the  loss  of  the  favor  of  its  gods. 

At  Athens,  the  men  who  took  part  in  the  common 
meal  were  selected  by  lot,  and  the  law  severely  pun¬ 
ished  those  who  refused  to  perform  this  duty.  The 
citizens  who  sat  at  the  sacred  table  were  clothed,  for 
the  time,  with  a  sacerdotal  character;  they  were  called 
parasites.  This  word  which,  at  a  later  period,  became 
a  term  of  contempt,  was  in  the  beginning  a  sacred 
title.1  In  the  time  of  Demosthenes  the  parasites  had 
disappeared  ;  but  the  prytanes  were  still  required  to 
eat  together  in  the  prytaneum.  In  all  the  cities  there 
were  halls  destined  for  the  common  meals.2 

If  we  observe  how  matters  passed  at  this  meal,  >ve 
shall  easily  recognize  the  religious  ceremony.  Evovy 
guest  had  a  crown  upon  his  head;  it  was  a  custom  of 
the  ancients  to  wear  a  crown  of  leaves  or  flowers  when 
one  performed  a  solemn  religious  act.  “  The  more  one  is 
adorned  with  flowers,”  they  said,  “  the  surer  one  is  of 
pleasing  the  gods;  but  if  you  sacrifice  without  wearing 
a  crown,  they  will  turn  from  you.”3  “A  crown,”  they 
also  said,  “  is  a  herald  of  good  omen,  which  prayer  sends 
before  it  towards  the  gods.”  4  For  the  same  reason  the 
banqueters  were  clothed  in  robes  of  white;  white  was 

1  Plutarch,  Solon ,  24.  Athenæus,  VI.  26. 

2  Demosthenes,  Pro  Corona ,  63.  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VII.  1, 
19.  Pollux,  VIII.  155. 

3  Fragment  of  Sappho,  in  Athenæus,  XV.  16. 

4  Athenæus,  XV.  19. 


208 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


the  sacred  color  among  the  ancients,  that  which  pleased 
the  gods.1 2 

The  meal  invariably  commenced  with  a  prayer  and 
libations,  and  hymns  were  sung.  The  nature  of  the 
dishes  and  the  kind  of  wine  that  tvas  to  be  served 
were  regulated  by  the  rules  of  each  city. 

To  deviate  in  the  least  from  the  usage  followed  in 
primitive  times,  to  present  a  new  dish  or  alter  the 
rhythm  of  the  sacred  hymns,  was  a  grave  impiety,  for 
which  the  whole  city  was  responsible  to  the  gods. 
Religion  even  went  so  far  as  to  fix  the  nature  of  the 
vessels  that  ought  to  be  employed  both  for  the  cooking 
of  the  food  and  for  the  service  of  the  table.  In  one  city 
the  bread  must  be  served  in  copper  baskets;  in  another 
earthen  dishes  had  to  be  employed.  Even  the  form  of 
the  loaves  was  immutably  fixed.8  These  rules  of  the 
old  religion  continued  to  be  observed,  and  the  sacred 
meals  always  preserved  their  primitive  simplicity. 
Creeds,  manners,  social  condition,  all  changed  ;  but  these 
meals  remained  unchangeable  ;  for  the  Greeks  were 
very  scrupulous  observers  of  their  national  religion. 

It  is  but  just  to  add,  that  when  the  guests  had 
satisfied  the  requirements  of  religion  by  eating  the 
prescribed  food,  they  might  immediately  afterwards 
commence  another  meal,  more  expensive  and  better 
suited  to  their  taste.  This  was  quite  a  common  prac¬ 
tice  at  Sparta.3 

The  custom  of  religious  meals  was  common  in  Italy 
as  well  as  in  Greece.  It  existed  anciently,  Aristotle 

1  Plato,  Laïcs,  XII.  956.  Cicero,  De  Legib.y  II.  18.  Virgil, 
V.  70,  774;  VII.  185;  VIII.  274.  So,  too,  among  the  Hindus, 
in  religious  ceremonies,  one  was  required  to  wear  a  crown,  and 
to  be  clothed  in  white. 

2  Athenæus,  I.  58  ;  IV.  32;  XI.  66. 


3  Ibid.,  IV.  19;  IV.  20 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  RELIGION  OP  THE  CITY. 


209 


tells  us,  among  the  peoples  known  as  CEnotrians,  Os- 
cans,  and  Ausonians.1  Virgil  has  mentioned  it  twice 
in  the  Æneid.  Old  Latinos  receives  the  envoys  of 
Æneas,  not  in  his  home,  but  in  a  temple,  “consecrated 
by  the  religion  of  his  ancestors;  there  took  place  the 
sacred  feasts  after  the  immolation  of  the  victims;  there 
all  the  family  chiefs  sat  together  at  long  tables.”  Far¬ 
ther  along,  when  Æneas  arrives  at  the  home  of  Evander, 
he  finds  him  celebrating  a  sacrifice.  The  king  is  in  the 
midst  of  his  people;  all  are  crowned  with  flowers;  all, 
seated  at  the  same  table,  sing  a  hymn  in  praise  of  the 
god  of  the  city. 

This  custom  was  perpetuated  at  Rome.  There  was 
always  a  hall  where  the  representatives  of  the  curies 
ate  together.  The  senate,  on  certain  days,  held  a 
sacred  repast  in  the  Capitol.  At  the  solemn  festivals, 
tables  were  spread  in  the  streets,  and  the  whole  people 
ate  at  them.  Originally  the  pontiffs  presided  at  these 
repasts  ;  later,  this  care  was  delegated  to  special  priests, 
who  were  called  epulones .2 

These  old  customs  give  us  an  idea  of  the  close  tie 
which  united  the  members  of  a  city.  Human  associa¬ 
tion  was  a  religion  ;  its  symbol  was  a  meal,  of  which 
they  partook  together.  We  must  picture  to  ourselves 
one  of  these  little  primitive  societies,  all  assembled,  or 
the  heads  of  families  at  least,  at  the  same  table,  each 
clothed  in  white,  with  a  crown  upon  his  head  ;  all  make 
the  libation  together,  recite  the  same  prayer,  sing  the 
same  hymns,  and  eat  the  same  food,  prepared  upon  the 
same  altar;  in  their  midst  their  ancestors  are  present, 
and  the  protecting  gods  share  the  meal.  Neither  in- 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  IY.  9,  3. 

*  Dionysius,  II.  23.  Aulus  Gellius,  XII.  8.  Livy,  XL.  59. 

14 


‘210 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  II!. 


terest,  nor  agreement,  nor  habit  creates  the  social  bond  ; 
it  is  this  holy  communion  piously  accomplished  in  the 
presence  of  the  gods  of  the  city. 

2.  The  Festivals  and  the  Calendar . 

In  all  ages  and  in  all  societies,  man  has  desired  to 
honor  his  gods  by  festivals;  he  has  established  that 
there  should  be  days  during  which  the  religious  senti¬ 
ment  should  reign  in  his  soul,  without  being  distracted 
by  terrestrial  thoughts  and  labors.  In  the  number  of 
days  that  he  has  to  live  he  has  devoted  a  part  to 
the  gods. 

Every  city  had  been  founded  with  rites  which,  in  the 
thoughts  of  the  ancients,  had  had  the  effect  of  estab¬ 
lishing  the  national  gods  within  its  walls.  It  was 
necessary  that  the  virtue  of  these  rites  should  be  re¬ 
juvenated  each  year  by  a  new  religious  ceremony 
This  festival  they  called  the  birthday;  all  the  citizens 
were  required  to  celebrate  it. 

Whatever  was  sacred  gave  occasion  for  a  festival. 
There  was  the  festival  of  the  city  enclosure,  ambur- 
balia ,  and  that  of  the  territorial  limits,  ambarvalia. 
On  those  days  the  citizens  formed  a  grand  procession, 
clad  in  white,  and  crowned  with  leaves;  they  made 
the  circuit  of  the  city  or  territory,  chanting  praters  ;  at 
the  head  walked  priests,  leading  victims,  which  they 
sacrificed  at  the  close  of  the  ceremony.1 

Afterwards  came  the  festival  of  the  founder.  Then 
each  of  the  heroes  of  the  city,  each  of  those  souls  that 
men  invoked  as  protectors,  claimed  a  worship.  Rom¬ 
ulus  had  his,  and  Servius  Tullius,  and  many  others, 


4  Tibullus,  IV.  1.  Festus,  v.  Amburbialet. 


CHAP.  VU.  THE  RELIGION  OP  THE  CITY.  211 

even  to  the  nurse  of  Romulus,  and  Evander’s  mother. 
In  the  same  way  Athens  had  the  festival  of  Cecrops, 
that  of  Erechtheus,  that  of  Theseus  ;  and  it  celebrated 
each  of  the  heroes  of  the  country,  the  guardian  of 
Theseus,  and  Eurystheus,  and  Androgeus,  and  a  mul¬ 
titude  of  others. 

There  were  also  the  rural  festivals,  those  for  plough¬ 
ing,  seed-time,  the  time  for  flowering,  and  that  for  the 
vintage.  In  Greece,  as  in  Italy,  every  act  of  the  hus¬ 
bandman’s  life  was  accompanied  with  sacrifices,  and 
men  performed  their  work  reciting  sacred  hymns.  At 
Rome  the  priests  fixed,  every  year,  the  day  on  which 
the  vintage  was  to  commence,  and  the  day  on  which 
the  new  wine  might  be  drunk.  Everything  was  regu¬ 
lated  by  religion.  A  religious  ordinance  required  the 
vines  to  be  pruned  ;  for  it  told  man  that  it  would  be 
impious  to  offer  a  libation  with  the  wine  of  an  unpruned 
vine.1 

Every  city  had  a  festival  for  each  of  the  divinities 
which  it  had  adopted  as  a  protector,  and  it  often  counted 
many  of  them.  When  the  worship  of  a  new  divinity 
was  introduced  into  the  city,  it  was  necessary  to  find  a 
new  day  in  the  year  to  consecrate  to  him.  What  char¬ 
acterized  the  religious  festivals  was  the  interdiction  of 
labor,  the  obligation  to  be  joyous,  the  songs,  and  the 
public  games.  The  Athenian  religion  added,  Take  care 
to  do  each  other  no  wrong  on  those  days.2 

The  calendar  was  nothing  more  than  the  order  of  the 
religious  festivals.  It  was  regulated,  therefore,  by  the 
priests.  At  Rome  it  was  long  before  the  calendar  was 
reduced  to  writing  ;  the  first  day  of  the  month,  the 

»  Varro,  VI.  16.  Virgil,  Georg.,  I.  340-350.  Pliny,  XVIII. 
Festus,  v  Vinalia.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  40;  Numa,  14. 

3  A  law  of  Solon,  cited  by  Demosthenes,  in  Timocrat. 


?12 


THE  CITY. 


» 


BOOK  HI. 


pontiff,  after  having  offered  a  sacrifice,  convoked  the 
people,  and  named  the  festivals  that  would  take  place 
ivi  the  course  of  the  month.  This  convocation  was 
called  the  calatio ,  whence  came  the  name  of  calends, 
which  was  given  to  this  day. 

The  calendar  was  regulated  neither  on  the  course  of 
the  moon  nor  on  the  apparent  course  of  the  sun.  It 
was  governed  solely  by  the  laws  of  religion,  mysterious 
laws,  which  the  priests  alone  knew.  Sometimes  re¬ 
ligion  required  that  the  year  should  be  shortened,  and 
at  other  times  that  it  should  be  lengthened.  We  can 
form  an  idea  of  primitive  calendars,  if  we  recollect  that 
among  the  Albans  the  month  of  May  had  twelve  days, 
and  that  March  had  thirty-six.1 

We  can  see  that  the  calendar  of  one  city  would  in 
no  wise  resemble  that  of  another,  since  the  religion 
was  not  the  same  in  both,  and  the  festivals,  as  well  as 
the  gods,  were  different.  The  year  had  not  the  same 
length  from  one  city  to  another.  The  months  did  not 
bear  the  same  names  :  at  Athens  they  had  quite  other 
names  than  at  Thebes,  and  at  Rome  they  had  not  the 
same  names  as  at  Lavinium.  This  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  name  of  each  month  was  derived,  ordinarily, 
from  the  principal  festival  it  contained,  and  the  festi¬ 
vals  were  not  the  same.  Different  cities  had  no  under¬ 
standing  to  commence  the  year  at  the  same  time,  or  to 
count  the  series  of  their  years  from  the  same  date.  In 
Greece  the  Olympic  festival  afforded,  in  the  course  of 
time,  a  common  date  ;  but  this  did  not  prevent  each 
city  from  having  its  own  particular  style  of  reckoning. 
In  Italy  every  city  counted  its  years  from  the  day  of 
its  foundation. 

1  Ceneorinus,  22.  Macrobiug,  I.  14;  I.  15.  Varro,  V.  28 
VI.  27. 


CHAP.  \n, 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY. 


213 


3.  The  Census . 

Among  the  most  important  ceremonies  of  the  city 
religion  there  was  one  known  as  the  purification.  It 
took  place  at  Athens  every  year  ;  at  Rome  it  occurred 
once  in  five  years.1  The  rites  which  were  then  ob¬ 
served,  and  the  very  name  which  it  bore,  indicate  that 
the  object  of  this  ceremony  was  to  efface  the  faults 
committed  by  the  citizens  against  the  worship.  In¬ 
deed,  this  religion,  with  its  complicated  forms,  was  a 
source  of  terror  for  the  ancients:  as  faitli  and  purity  of 
intention  went  for  very  little,  and  the  religion  con¬ 
sisted  entirely  in  the  minute  practice  of  innumerable 
rules,  they  were  always  in  fear  of  having  been  guilty 
of  some  negligence,  some  omission,  or  some  error,  and 
were  never  sure  of  being  free  from  the  anger  or  malice 
of  some  god.  An  expiatory  sacrifice  was  necessary, 
therefore,  to  reassure  the  heart  of  man.  The  magis¬ 
trate  whose  duty  it  was  to  offer  it  (at  Rome  it  was 
the  censor;  before  the  censor,  it  was  the  consul,  and 
before  the  consul,  the  king)  commenced  by  assuring 
himself,  by  the  aid  of  the  auspices,  that  the  gods 
accepted  the  ceremony.  He  then  convoked  the  peo¬ 
ple  by  means  of  a  herald,  who,  for  this  purpose,  made 
use  of  a  certain  sacramental  formula.  All  the  citizens, 
on  the  appointed  day,  collected  outside  the  walls  ;  there, 
all  being  silent,  the  magistrate  walked  three  times 
around  the  assembly,  driving  before  him  three  vic¬ 
tims,  a  sheep,  a  hog,  a  bull  (suovetaurile)  ;  these  three 
animals  together  constituted,  among  the  Greeks,  as 

1  Diogenes  Laertius,  Life  of  Socrates ,  23.  Harpocration, 
< Paçnuxôç .  They  also  purified  the  domestic  hearth  every  year 
Æschylus,  Ghoeph.,  DOG. 


214 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


among  the  Romans,  an  expiatory  sacrifice.  Priests 
and  victims  followed  the  procession.  When  the  third 
circuit  was  completed,  the  magistrate  pronounced  a 
set  form  of  prayer,  and  immolated  the  victims.1  From 
this  moment  every  stain  was  effaced,  all  negligence  in 
the  worship  repaired,  and  the  city  was  at  peace  with 
its  gods.  Two  things  were  necessary  for  an  act  of 
this  nature,  and  of  so  great  importance  ;  one  was,  that 
no  stranger  should  be  found  among  the  citizens,  as  this 
would  have  destroyed  the  effect  of  the  ceremony;  the 
other  was,  that  all  the  citizens  should  be  present,  with¬ 
out  which  the  city  would  have  retained  some  stain.  It 
was  necessary,  therefore,  that  this  religious  ceremony 
should  be  preceded  by  a  numbering  of  the  citizens. 
At  Rome  and  at  Athens,  they  were  counted  with  scru¬ 
pulous  care.  It  is  probable  that  the  number  was  pro¬ 
nounced  by  the  magistrate  in  the  formula  of  prayer,  as 
it  was  afterwards  inserted  in  the  account  of  the  cere¬ 
mony  which  the  censor  drew  up. 

The  loss  of  citizenship  was  the  punishment  of  the 
man  who  failed  to  have  his  name  enrolled.  This  sever¬ 
ity  is  easily  explained.  The  man  who  had  not  taken 
part  in  the  religious  act,  who  had  not  been  purified, 
for  whom  the  prayer  had  not  been  pronounced  or  the 
victim  sacrificed,  could  no  longer  be  a  member  of  the 
city.  In  the  sight  of  the  gods,  who  had  been  present 
at  the  ceremony,  he  was  no  longer  a  citizen.2 

1  Yarro,  L.  L.,  VI.  86.  Valerius  Maximus,  V.  I,  10.  Livy, 
I.  44;  III.  22;  VI.  27.  Propertius,  IV.  1,  20.  Servius,  ad 
Eclog .,  X.  55;  ad  Æn.,  VIII.  231.  Livy  attributes  this  institu¬ 
tion  to  king  Servius  ;  but  probably  it  is  older  than  Rome,  and 
existed  in  all  the  cities,  as  well  as  at  Rome.  It  is  attributed  to 
Servius  just  because  he  modified  it,  as  we  shall  see. 

*  Citizens  absent  from  Rome  were  required  to  return  home  for 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY.  215 

We  are  enabled  to  judge  of  the  importance  of  this 
ceremony  by  the  exorbitant  power  of  the  magistrate 
who  presided  at  it.  The  censor,  before  commencing 
the  sacrifice,  ranged  the  people  in  a  certain  order;  the 
senators,  the  knights,  and  the  tribes,  each  rank  in  its 
appropriate  place.  Absolute  master  on  that  day,  he 
fixed  the  place  of  each  man  in  the  different  categories. 
Then,  all  having  been  arranged  according  to  his  direc¬ 
tions,  he  performed  the  sacred  act.  Now,  a  result  of 
this  was,  that  from  that  day  to  the  following  lustration, 
every  man  preserved  in  the  city  the  rank  which  the 
censor  had  assigned  him  in  the  ceremony.  He  was  a 
senator  if  on  that  day  he  had  been  counted  among 
the  senators  ;  a  knight  if  he  had  figured  among  the 
knights  ;  if  a  simple  citizen,  he  formed  a  part  of  the 
tribe  in  the  ranks  of  which  he  had  been  on  that  day; 
and  if  the  magistrate  had  refused  to  admit  him  into  the 
ceremony,  he  was  no  longer  a  citizen.  Thus  the  place 
which  one  had  occupied  in  the  religious  act,  and  where 
the  gods  had  seen  him,  was  the  one  he  held  in  the  city 
for  five  years.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  immense 
power  of  the  censor. 

Tn  this  ceremony  none  but  citizens  took  part  ;  but 
their  wives,  their  children,  their  slaves,  their  prop¬ 
erty,  real  and  personal,  were  in  a  manner  purified  in 
the  person  of  the  head  of  the  family.  It  was  for  this 
reason  that,  before  the  sacrifice,  each  citizen  was  re¬ 
quired  to  give  to  the  censor  an  account  of  the  persons 
and  property  belonging  to  him. 

The  lustration  was  accomplished  in  Augustus’s  time 
with  the  same  exactitude  and  the  same  rites  as  in  the 


the  lustration;  nothing  could  exempt  them  from  this.  Velleius 
[I  15. 


216 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


most  ancient  times.  The  pontiffs  still  regarded  it  as  a 
religious  act,  while  statesmen  saw  in  it  an  excellent 
measure  of  administration,  at  least. 

4.  Religion  in  the  Assembly ,  in  the  Senate ,  in  the 
Tribunal ,  in  the  Army ,  in  the  Triumph . 

There  was  not  a  single  act  of  public  life  in  which  the 
gods  were  not  seen  to  take  a  part.  As  he  was  under 
the  influence  of  the  idea  that  they  were  by  turns  ex¬ 
cellent  protectors  or  cruel  enemies,  man  never  dared 
to  act  without  being  sure  that  they  were  favorable 
The  people  assembled  only  on  such  days  as  religion 
permitted.  They  remembered  that  the  city  had  suf¬ 
fered  a  disaster  on  a  certain  day;  this  was,  doubtless, 
because  on  that  day  the  gods  had  been  either  absent 
or  irritated  ;  they  would  probably  be  in  the  same  mood 
at  the  same  season  every  year,  for  reasons  unknown  to 
mortals.  This  day,  therefore,  was  forever  unlucky  ; 
there  were  no  assemblies,  no  courts;  public  life  was 
suspended. 

At  Rome,  before  an  assembly  proceeded  to  business, 
the  augurs  were  required  to  declare  that  the  gods  were 
propitious.  The  assembly  commenced  with  a  prayer, 
which  the  augur  pronounced,  and  which  the  consul 
repeated  after  him. 

There  was  the  same  custom  among  the  Athenians. 
The  assembly  always  commenced  by  a  religious  act. 
Priests  offered  a  sacrifice  ;  a  large  circle  was  then  traced 
by  pouring  lustral  water  upon  the  ground,  and  within 
this  sacred  circle  the  citizens  assembled.1  Before  any 

1  Aristophanes,  Acharn.,  44.  Æschines,  in  Timarch I.  21; 
in  Ctesiph.,  176,  and  Scholiast  Dinarch.,  in  Aristog .,  14 


L’HAP.  VII.  ïflE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY. 


217 


orator  began  to  speak,  a  prayer  was  pronounced  be- 
fore  the  silent  people.  The  auspices  were  also  con¬ 
sulted,  and  if  any  unfavorable  sign  appeared  in  the 
heavens,  the  assembly  broke  up  at  once.1 

The  tribune,  or  speaker’s  stand,  was  a  sacred  pi  ace, 
and  the  orator  never  ascended  it  without  a  crown  upon 
his  head.2 

The  place  of  assembly  of  the  Roman  senate  was 
always  a  temple.  If  a  session  had  been  held  else¬ 
where  than  in  a  sacred  place,  its  acts  would  have  been 
null  and  void  ;  for  the  gods  would  not  have  been  pres¬ 
ent.  Before  every  deliberation,  the  president  offered  a 
sacrifice  and  pronounced  a  prayer.  In  the  hall  there 
was  an  altar,  where  every  senator,  on  entering,  offered 
a  libation,  at  the  same  time  invoking  the  gods.a 

The  Athenian  senate  was  little  different.  The  hall 
also  contained  an  altar  and  a  sacred  fire.  A  religious 
ceremony  was  observed  at  the  opening  of  each  session. 
Every  senator,  on  entering,  approached  the  altar,  and 
pronounced  a  prayer.  While  the  session  lasted,  every 
senator  wore  a  crown  upon  his  head,  as  in  religious 
ceremonies.4 

At  Rome,  as  well  as  at  Athens,  courts  of  justice  were 
open  in  the  city  only  on  such  days  as  religion  pro¬ 
nounced  favorable.  At  Athens  the  session  of  the  court 
was  held  near  an  altar,  and  commenced  with  a  saa 

*  Aristophanes,  Acharn .,  171. 

*  Aristophanes,  Tliesmoph .,  381,  and  Scholiast. 

3  Vafro,  cited  by  Aulus  Gellius,  XIV.  7.  Cicero,  ad  Family 
X.  12.  Suetonius,  Aug.,  35.  Dion  Cassius,  LIY.  p.  621.  Ser- 
vius,  VII.  153. 

4  Andoeides,  De  Myst.,  44,  De  Red.,  15.  Antiphon,  Pro 
Chor .,  45.  Lycurgus,  in  Leocr.,  122.  Demosthenes,  in  Meidi- 
<mt,  114.  Diodorus,  XIV.  4. 


218 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  ILL 


rifice.1  In  Homer’s  time  the  judges  assembled  “in  a 
holy  circle.” 

Festus  says,  that  in  the  rituals  of  the  Etruscans  were 
directions  as  to  the  founding  of  a  city,  the  consecra¬ 
tion  of  a  temple,  the  arrangement  of  curies  and  tribes 
in  a  public  assembly,  and  the  ranging  of  an  army  in 
ordei  of  battle.  All  these  things  were  marked  in  the 
ritual,  because  all  these  things  were  connected  with 
religion. 

In  war,  religion  was  as  influential,  at  least,  as  in 
peace.  In  the  Italian  cities 2  there  were  colleges  of 
priests,  called  fetiales ,  who  presided,  like  the  heralds 
among  the  Greeks,  at  all  the  sacred  ceremonies  to  which 
international  relations  gave  rise.  A  fetialis ,  veiled, 
and  with  a  crown  upon  his  head,  declared  war  by  pro¬ 
nouncing  a  sacramental  formula.  At  the  same  time, 
the  consul,  in  priestly  robes,  offered  a  sacrifice,  and 
solemnly  opened  the  temple  of  the  most  venerated  and 
most  ancient  divinity  of  Italy.  Before  setting  out  on 
an  expedition,  the  army  being  assembled,  the  general 
repeated  prayers  and  offered  a  sacrifice.  The  custom 
was  the  same  at  Athens  and  at  Sparta.3 

During  a  campaign  the  army  presented  the  image 
of  the  city;  its  religion  followed  it.  The  Greeks  took 
with  them  the  statues  of  their  divinities.  Every  Greek 
or  Roman  army  carried  with  it  a  hearth,  on  which  the 
sacred  fire  was  kept  up  night  and  day.4  A  Roman 

1  Aristophanes,  Wasps,  860-865.  Homer,  Iliad,  XVIII.  504. 

2  Dionysius,  II.  73.  Servius,  X.  14. 

3  Dionysius,  IX.  57.  Virgil,  VII.  601.  Xenophon,  Ilellen ., 
VI.  5. 

4  Herodotus,  VIII.  6.  Plutarch,  Agesilaus ,  6;  Publicola ,  17. 
Xenophon,  Gov.  Laced.,  14.  Dionysius,  IX.  6.  Stobæus,  42. 
Julius  Obsequeus,  12,  116. 


s 


CHAP.  Vil. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  CITY. 


219 


army  was  accompanied  by  augurs  and  pullarii  (feeders 
of  the  sacred  chickens)  :  every  Greek  army  had  a 
diviner. 

Let  us  examine  a  Roman  army  at  the  moment  when 
it  is  preparing  for  battle.  The  consul  orders  a  victim 
to  be  brought,  and  strikes  it  with  the  axe;  it  falls:  its 
entrails  will  indicate  the  will  of  the  gods.  An  aruspex 
examines  them,  and  if  the  signs  are  favorable,  the  con¬ 
sul  gives  the  signal  for  battle.  The  most  skilful  dis¬ 
positions,  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  are  of  no 
account  if  the  gods  do  not  permit  the  battle.  The 
fundamental  principle  of  the  military  art  among  the 
Romans  was  to  be  able  to  put  off  a  battle  when  the 
gods  were  opposed  to  it.  It  was  for  this  reason  that 
they  made  a  sort  of  citadel  of  their  camp  every  day. 

Let  us  now  examine  a  Greek  army,  and  we  will  take 
for  example  the  battle  of  Plataea.  The  Spartans  are 
drawn  up  in  line;  each  one  has  his  post  for  battle. 
They  all  have  crowns  upon  their  heads,  and  the  flute- 
players  sound  the  religious  hymns.  The  king,  a  little 
in  rear  of  the  ranks,  slaughters  the  victims.  But  the 
entrails  do  not  give  the  favorable  signs,  and  the  sacri¬ 
fice  must  be  repeated.  Two,  three,  four  victims  are 
successively  immolated.  During  this  time  the  Persian 
cavalry  approach,  shoot  their  arrows,  and  kill  quite  a 
number  of  Spartans.  The  Spartans  remain  immova¬ 
ble,  their  shields  placed  at  their  feet,  without  even 
putting  themselves  on  the  defensive  against  the  arrows 
of  the  enemy.  They  await  the  signal  of  the  gods. 
At  last  the  victims  offer  the  favorable  signs;  then  the 
Spartans  raise  their  shields,  seize  their  swords,  move 
on  to  battle,  and  are  victorious. 

After  every  victory  ihey  offer  a  sacrifice;  and  this 
is  the  origin  of  the  triumph,  which  is  so  well  known 


220 


TUE  CITY. 


BOOTl  I1L 


among  the  Romans,  and  which  was  not  less  common 
among  the  Greeks.  This  custom  was  a  consequence 
of  the  opinion  which  attributed  the  victory  to  the  gods 
of  the  city.  Before  the  battle  the  army  had  addressed 
a  prayer  to  them,  like  the  one  we  read  in  Æschylus  : 
“To  you,  O  gods,  who  inhabit  and  possess  our  land,  if 
our  arms  are  fortunate,  and  if  our  city  is  saved,  I 
promise  to  sprinkle  your  altars  with  the  blood  of  sheep, 
to  sacrifice  bulls  to  you,  and  to  hang  up  in  your  holy 
temples  the  trophies  conquered  by  the  spear.” 1  By 
virtue  of  this  promise,  the  victor  owed  a  sacrifice.  The 
army  entered  the  city  to  offer  it,  and  repaired  to  the 
temple,  forming  a  long  procession,  and  singing  a  sa¬ 
cred  hymn  —  dylupfiog.2 

At  Rome  the  ceremony  was  very  nearly  the  same. 
The  army  marched  in  procession  to  the  principal  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  city.  The  priests  walked  at  the  head  of  the 
cortège ,  leading  victims.  On  reaching  the  temple,  the 
general  sacrificed  the  victims  to  the  gods.  On  their 
way  the  soldiers  all  wore  crowns,  as  was  becoming  in 
a  sacred  ceremony,  and  sung  a  hymn,  as  in  Greece. 
There  came  a  time,  indeed,  when  the  soldiers  did  not 
scruple  to  replace  the  hymn,  which  they  did  not  under¬ 
stand,  by  barrack  songs  and  raillery  at  their  general  ; 
but  they  still  preserved  the  custom  of  repeating  the  re¬ 
frain  Io  triumphed  Indeed,  it  was  this  refrain  which 
gave  the  name  to  the  ceremony. 

Thus,  in  time  of  peace,  as  in  war  time,  religion  inter¬ 
vened  in  all  acts.  It  was  everywhere  present,  it  en- 

1  Æschylus,  Sept.  Cont.  Theb 252-260.  Eurip.,  Phœn .,  573. 

*  Diodorus,  IV".  5.  Photius,  ôolunfioç,  vixtjç,  nopm]. 

à  Varro,  L.  Z.,  VI.  64.  Pliny,  N.  //.,  Vil.  56.  Macrobius, 
L  19. 


CHAP.  YIT. 


THE  RELIGION  OP  THE  CITY. 


22.1 


veloped  man.  The  soul,  the  body,  private  life,  publio 
life,  meals,  festivals,  assemblies,  tribunals,  battles,  all 
were  under  the  empire  of  this  city  religion.  It  regu¬ 
lated  all  the  acts  of  man,  disposed  of  every  instant  of 
his  life,  fixed  all  his  habits.  It  governed  a  human 
being  with  an  authority  so  absolute  that  there  was 
nothing  beyond  its  control. 

One  would  have  a  very  false  idea  of  human  nature 
to  believe  that  this  ancient  religion  was  an  imposture, 
and,  so  to  speak,  a  comedy.  Montesquieu  pretends 
that  the  Romans  adopted  a  worship  only  to  restrain 
the  people.  A  religion  never  had  such  an  origin  ;  and 
every  religion  that  has  come  to  sustain  itself  only  from 
motives  of  public  utility,  has  not  stood  long.  Mon¬ 
tesquieu  has  also  said  that  the  Romans  subjected  reli¬ 
gion  to  the  state.  The  contrary  is  true.  It  is  impossi¬ 
ble  to  read  many  pages  of  Livy  without  being  con¬ 
vinced  of  this.  Neither  the  Romans  nor  the  Greeks 
knew  anything  of  those  sad  conflicts  between  church 
and  state  which  have  been  so  common  in  other  societies. 
But  this  is  due  solely  to  the  fact  that  at  Rome  as  well  as 
at  Sparta  and  Athens,  the  state  was  enslaved  by  its 
religion;  or,  rather,  the  state  and  religion  were  so  com¬ 
pletely  confounded,  that  it  was  impossible  even  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  one  from  the  other,  to  say  nothing  of 
forming  an  idea  of  a  conflict  between  the  two. 


222 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Rituals  and  the  Annals. 

The  character  and  the  virtue  of  the  religion  of  th 
ancients  was  not  to  elevate  human  intelligence  to  the 
conception  of  the  absolute;  to  open  to  the  eager  mind 
a  brilliant  road,  at  the  end  of  which  it  could  gain  a 
glimpse  of  God.  This  religion  was  a  badly  connected 
assemblage  of  small  creeds,  of  minute  practices,  of 
petty  observances.  It  was  not  necessary  to  seek  the 
meaning  of  them  ;  there  was  no  need  of  reflecting,  or 
of  giving  a  reason  for  them.  The  word  religion  did 
not  signify  what  it  signifies  for  us;  by  this  word  we 
understand  a  body  of  dogmas,  a  doctrine  concerning 
God,  a  symbol  of  faith  concerning  what  is  in  and 
around  us.  This  same  word,  among  the  ancients,  sig¬ 
nified  rites,  ceremonies,  acts  of  exterior  worship.  The 
doctrine  was  of  small  account:  the  practices  were  the 
important  part  ;  these  were  obligatory,  and  bound  man 
( ligare ,  religio).  Religion  was  a  material  bond,  a  chain 
which  held  man  a  slave.  Man  had  originated  it,  and 
he  was  governed  by  it.  He  stood  in  fear  of  it,  and 
dared  not  reason  upon  it,  or  discuss  it,  or  examine  it. 
Gods,  heroes,  dead  men,  claimed  a  material  worship 
from  him,  and  he  paid  them  the  debt,  to  keep  them 
friendly,  and,  still  more,  not  to  make  enemies  of  them. 

Man  counted  little  upon  their  friendship.  The} 
were  envious,  irritable  gods,  without  attachment  or 
friendship  for  man,  and  willingly  at  war  with  him. 
Neither  did  the  gods  love  man,  nor  did  man  love  his 
gods.  He  believed  in  their  existence,  but  would  have 


CHAP.  VIII.  THE  RITUALS  AND  THE  ANNALS. 


223 


wished  that  they  did  not  exist.  He  feared  even  his 
domestic  and  national  gods,  and  was  continually  in 
fear  of  being  betrayed  by  them.  His  great  inquietude 
was  lest  he  might  incur  their  displeasure.  He  was  oc¬ 
cupied  all  his  life  in  appeasing  them.  Paces  deorum 
qucerere ,  says  the  poet.  But  how  satisfy  them?  Above 
all,  how  could  one  be  sure  that  he  had  satisfied  them, 
and  that  they  were  on  his  side  ?  Men  believed  that 
the  employment  of  certain  formulas  answered  this  pur¬ 
pose.  A  certain  prayer,  composed  of  certain  words, 
had  been  followed  by  the  success  that  was  asked  for; 
this  was,  without  doubt,  because  it  had  been  heard  by 
the  god,  and  had  exercised  an  influence  upon  him  ;  that 
it  had  been  potent,  more  potent  than  the  god,  since  he 
had  not  been  able  to  resist  it.  They  therefore  pre¬ 
served  the  mysterious  and  sacred  words  of  this  prayer. 
After  the  father,  the  son  repeated  it.  As  soon  as  writ¬ 
ing  was  in  use  it  was  committed  to  writing.  Every 
family,  every  religious  family  at  least,  had  a  book  in 
which  were  written  the  prayers  of  which  the  ancestors 
had  made  use,  and  with  which  the  gods  had  complied.1 
It  was  an  arm  which  man  employed  against  the  incon¬ 
stancy  of  the  gods.  But  not  a  word  or  syllable  must 
be  changed,  and  least  of  all  the  rhythm  in  which  it  had 
been  chanted.  For  then  the  prayer  would  have  lost 
its  force,  and  the  gods  wTould  have  remained  free.  But 
the  formula  was  not  enough  ;  there  were  exterior  acts 
whose  details  were  minute  and  unchangeable.  The 
slightest  gesture  of  the  one  who  performed  the  sacri¬ 
fice,  and  the  smallest  parts  of  his  costume,  were  gov¬ 
erned  by  strict  rules.  In  addressing  one  god,  it  was 

1  Dionysius,  I.  75.  Varro,  VI.  90.  Cicero,  Brutus ,  16. 
Auius  Gellius,  XIII.  19. 


224 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


necessary  to  have  the  head  veiled;  in  addressing  an¬ 
other,  the  head  was  uncovered  ;  for  a  third,  the  skirt 
of  the  toça  was  thrown  over  the  shoulder.  In  certain 
acts  the  feet  had  to  be  naked.  There  were  certain 
■prayers  which  were  without  effect  unless  the  man,  after 
pronouncing  them,  pirouetted  on  one  foot  from  left  to 
right.  The  nature  of  the  victim,  the  color  of  the  hair, 
the  manner  of  slaying  it,  even  the  shape  of  the  knife, 
and  the  kind  of  wood  employed  to  roast  the  flesh  —  all 
was  fixed  for  every  god  by  the  religion  of  each  family, 
or  of  each  city.  In  vain  the  most  fervent  heart  offered 
to  the  gods  the  fattest  victims:  if  one  of  the  innumer¬ 
able  rites  of  the  sacrifice  was  neglected,  the  sacrifice 
was  without  effect;  the  least  failure  made  of  the  sacred 
act  an  act  of  impiety.  The  slightest  alteration  dis¬ 
turbed  and  confused  the  religion  of  a  country,  and 
changed  the  protecting  gods  into  so  many  cruel  ene¬ 
mies.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  Athens  was  so  severe 
against  the  priest  who  made  some  change  in  the  ancient 
rites.1  It  was  for  the  same  reason  that  the  Roman 
senate  degraded  its  consuls  and  its  dictators  who  had 
committed  any  error  in  a  sacrifice. 

All  these  formulas  and  practices  had  been  handed 
dowi  by  ancestors  who  had  proved  their  efficacy. 
There  was  no  occasion  for  innovation.  It  was  a  duty 
to  rest  upon  what  the  ancestors  had  done,  and  the 
highest  piety  consisted  in  imitating  them.  It  mattered 
little  that  a  belief  changed  ;  it  might  be  freely  modified 
from  age  to  age,  and  take  a  thousand  diverse  forms,  in 
accordance  with  the  reflection  of  sages,  or  with  the 
popular  imagination.  But  it  was  of  the  greatest  im¬ 
portance  that  the  formulas  should  not  fall  into  oblivion, 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Near  am ,  116,  117. 


s 


CHAP.  VIII.  THE  RITUALS  AND  THE  ANNALS.  225 

and  that  the  rites  should  not  be  modified.  Every  city, 
therefore,  had  a  book  in  which  these  were  preserved. 

The  use  of  sacred  books  was  universal  among  the 
Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  Etruscans.1  Sometimes 
the  ritual  was  written  on  tablets  of  wood,  sometimes 
on  cloth  ;  Athens  engraved  its  rites  upon  tablets  of 
copper,  that  they  might  be  imperishable.  Rome  had 
its  books  of  the  pontiffs,  its  books  of  the  augurs,  its 
book  of  ceremonies,  and  its  collection  of  Indigitamen- 
ta.  There  w’as  not  a  city  which  had  not  also  its  col¬ 
lection  of  ancient  hymns  in  honor  of  its  gods.2  In  vain 
did  language  change  with  manners  and  beliefs  ;  the 
words  and  the  rhythm  remained  unchangeable,  and  on 
the  festivals  men  continued  to  sing  these  hymns  after 
they  no  longer  understood  them.  These  books  and 
songs,  written  by  the  priests,  were  preserved  by  them 
with  the  greatest  care.  They  were  never  revealed  to 
strangers.  To  reveal  a  rite,  or  a  formula,  would  have 
been  to  betray  the  religion  of  the  city,  and  to  deliver 
its  gods  to  the  enemy.  For  greater  precaution  they 
were  concealed  from  the  citizens  themselves,  and  the 
priests  alone  were  allowed  to  know  them. 

In  the  minds  of  the  people,  all  that  was  ancient  was 
venerable  and  sacred.  When  a  Roman  wished  to  say 
that  anything  was  dear  to  him,  he  said,  “  That  is  an¬ 
cient  for  me."  The  Greeks  had  the  same  expression. 
The  cities  clung  strongly  to  their  past,  because  they 
found  in  the  past  all  the  motives  as  well  as  all  the  rules 

1  Pausanias,  IV.  27.  Plutarch,  Coni.  Colot.,  17.  Pollux, 
VIII.  128.  Pliny,  N.  II.,  XIII.  21.  Val.  Max.,  I.  1,  3.  Var- 
ro,  L.  L.,  VI.  1G.  Censorinus,  17.  Pestus,  v.  Rituales. 

2  Plutarch,  Theseus .  16.  Tac.,  Ann.,  IV.  43.  Ælian,  H.  V., 
II.  39. 


15 


226 


THE  CITY. 


ROOK  III 


of  their  religion.  They  had  need  to  look  back,  for  it 
was  upon  recollections  and  traditions  that  their  entire 
worship  rested.  Thus  history  had  for  the  ancients  a 
greater  importance  than  it  has  for  us.  It  existed  a 
long  time  before  Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  —  written 
or  unwritten  ;  as  simple  oral  traditions,  or  in  books,  it 
was  contemporary  with  the  birth  of  cities.  There  was 
no  city,  however  small  and  obscure  it  might  be,  that 
did  not  pay  the  greatest  attention  to  pieserving  an 
account  of  what  had  passed  within  it.  This  was  not 
vanity,  but  religion.  A  city  did  not  believe  it  had  the 
right  to  allow  anything  to  be  forgotten  ;  for  everything 
in  its  history  was  connected  with  its  worship. 

History  commenced,  indeed,  with  the  act  of  founda¬ 
tion,  and  recorded  the  sacred  name  of  the  founder.  It 
was  continued  with  the  legend  of  the  gods  of  the  city, 
its  protecting  heroes.  It  taught  the  date,  the  origin,  and 
the  reason  of  every  worship,  and  explained  its  obscure 
rites.  The  prodigies  which  the  gods  of  the  country 
had  performed,  and  by  which  they  had  manifested  their 
power,  their  goodness,  or  their  anger,  were  recorded 
there  ;  there  were  described  the  ceremonies  by  which 
the  priests  had  skilfully  turned  a  bad  presage,  or  had 
appeased  the  anger  of  the  gods;  there  were  recorded 
the  epidemics  which  had  afflicted  the  city,  on  what 
day  a  temple  had  been  consecrated,  and  for  what  rea¬ 
son  a  sacrifice  had  been  established  ;  there  were  record¬ 
ed  all  the  events  which  related  to  religion,  the  victories 
that  proved  the  assistance  of  the  gods,  and  in  which 
these  gods  had  often  been  seen  fighting,  the  defeats 
which  indicated  their  anger,  and  for  which  it  had  been 
necessary  to  institute  an  expiatory  sacrifice.  All  this 
was  written  for  the  instruction  and  the  piety  of  the  de¬ 
scendants.  All  this  history  was  a  material  proof  of  the 


CHAP.  VIII. 


THE  RITUALS  AND  THE  ANNALS. 


227 


existence  of  the  national  gods  ;  for  the  events  which 
it  contained  were  the  visible  form  under  which  these 
gods  had  revealed  themselves  from  age  to  age.  Even 
among  these  facts  there  were  many  that  gave  rise  to 
festivals  and  annual  sacrifices.  The  history  of  the  city 
told  the  citizen  what  he  must  believe  and  what  he  must 
adore.  Then,  too,  this  history  was  written  by  priests. 
Rome  had  its  annals  of  the  pontiffs;  the  Sabine  priests, 
the  Samnite  priests,  and  the  Etruscan  priests  had 
similar  ones.1  Among  the  Greeks  there  has  been  pre¬ 
served  to  us  the  recollection  of  the  books  or  secret 
annals  of  Athens,  Sparta,  Delphi,  Naxos,  and  Taren- 
tum.2  When  Pausanias  travelled  in  Greece,  in  the 
time  of  Hadrian,  the  priests  of  every  city  related  to  him 
the  old  local  histories.  They  did  not  invent  them,  but 
had  learned  them  in  their  annals.  This  sort  of  history 
was  entirely  local.  It  commenced  at  the  foundation, 
because  what  had  happened  before  this  date  was  of  no 
interest  to  the  city  ;  and  this  explains  why  the  an¬ 
cients  have  so  completely  ignored  their  earliest  history. 
Their  records  related  only  to  affairs  in  which  the  city 
had  been  engaged,  and  gave  no  heed  to  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Every  city  had  its  special  history,  as  it  had  its 
religion  and  its  calendar. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  these  city  annals  were 
exceedingly  dry,  and  very  whimsical,  both  in  substance 
and  in  form.  They  were  not  a  work  of  art,  but  a  re¬ 
ligious  work.  Later  came  the  writers,  the  narrators, 

1  Dionysius,  II.  49.  Livy,  X.  33.  Cicero,  De  Divin.,  II.  41  ; 
1.33;  II.  23.  Censorinus,  12,  17.  Suetonius,  Claudius,  42. 
Macrobius,  I.  12;  V.  19.  Solin.,  II.  9.  Servius,  VII.  678; 
VIII.  398.  Letters  of  Marc.  Aurel.,  IV.  4. 

*  Plutarch,  Coni.  Colot.,  17;  Solon,  11;  Moral.,  869.  A  the* 
æus,  XI.  49.  Tac.,  Ann.,  IV.  43. 


228 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


like  Herodotus  ;  the  thinkers,  like  Thucydides.  Histo¬ 
ry  then  left  the  hands  of  the  priests,  and  became  some¬ 
thing  quite  different.  Unfortunately  these  beautiful 
and  brilliant  writings  still  leave  us  to  regret  the  early 
annals  of  the  cities,  and  all  that  they  would  have 
taught  us  of  the  beliefs  and  the  inner  life  of  the  an¬ 
cients.  But  these  books,  which  appear  to  have  been 
kept  secret,  which  never  left  the  sanctuaries,  which 
were  never  copied,  and  which  the  priests  alone  read, 
have  all  perished^and  only  a  faded  recollection  of  them 
has  remained. 

This  trace,  it  is  true,  has  a  great  value  for  us.  With¬ 
out  it  we  should  perhaps  have  a  right  to  reject  all  that 
Greece  and  Rome  relate  to  us  of  their  antiquities  ;  all 
those  accounts,  that  appear  to  us  so  improbable,  be¬ 
cause  they  differ  so  much  from  our  habits  and  our  man¬ 
ner  of  thinking  and  acting,  might  pass  for  the  product 
of  men’s  imaginations.  But  this  trace  of  the  old  an¬ 
nals  that  has  remained  shows  us  the  pious  respect 
which  the  ancients  had  for  their  history.  Every  city 
had  archives,  in  which  the  facts  were  religiously  pre¬ 
served  as  fast  as  they  took  place.  In  these  sacred 
books  every  page  was  contemporary  with  the  event 
which  it  recorded.  It  was  materially  impossible  to 
alter  these  documents,  for  the  priests  had  the  care  of 
them  ;  and  it  was  greatly  to  the  interest  of  religion 
that  they  should  remain  unalterable.  It  was  not  even 
easy  for  the  pontiff,  as  he  wrote  the  lines,  skilfully  to 
insert  statements  contrary  to  the  truth  ;  for  he  believed 
that  all  events  came  from  the  gods  ;  that  he  revealed 
their  will,  and  that  he  was  giving  future  generations 
subjects  for  pious  souvenirs,  and  even  for  sacred  acts. 
Every  event  that  took  place  in  the  city  commenced  at 
once  to  form  a  part  of  the  religion  of  the  future.  With 


s 


CHAP.  VIII.  THE  RITUALS  AND  THE  ANNALS. 


229 


such  beliefs  we  can  easily  understand  that  there  would 
be  much  involuntary  error  —  a  result  of  credulity, 
of  a  love  for  the  marvellous,  and  of  faith  in  the  nation¬ 
al  gods  ;  but  voluntary  falsehood  is  not  to  be  thought 
of  ;  for  that  would  have  been  impious  ;  it  would  have 
violated  the  sanctity  of  the  annals,  and  corrupted  the 
religion.  We  can  believe,  therefore,  that  in  these 
books,  if  all  was  not  true,  there  was  nothing  at  least 
that  the  priests  did  not  believe.  Nowr,  for  the  his¬ 
torian  who  seeks  to  pierce  the  obscurity  of  those  early 
times,  it  is  a  great  source  of  confidence  to  know  that, 
if  he  has  to  deal  with  errors,  he  has  not  to  deal  with 
imposture.  These  errors  even,  having  still  the  advan¬ 
tage  of  being  contemporary  with  those  ancient  ages 
that  he  is  studying,  may  reveal  to  him,  if  not  the  de¬ 
tails  of  events,  at  least  the  sincere  convictions  of  men. 

These  annals,  it  is  true,  were  kept  secret  ;  neither 
Herodotus  nor  Livy  read  them.  But  several  passages 
of  ancient  authors  prove  that  some  parts  became  pub¬ 
lic,  and  that  fragments  of  them  came  to  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  historians. 

There  were,  moreover,  besides  the  annals,  —  these 
written  and  authentic  documents,  —  oral  traditions, 
which  were  perpetuated  among  the  people  of  a  city  ; 
not  vague  and  indifferent  traditions,  like  ours,  but  tra¬ 
ditions  dear  to  the  cities,  such  as  did  not  vary  to 
please  the  imagination,  such  as  men  were  not  at 
liberty  to  modify  ;  for  they  formed  a  part  of  the  wor¬ 
ship,  and  were  composed  of  narrations  and  songs  that 
were  repeated  from  year  to  year  in  the  religious  festi¬ 
vals.  These  sacred  and  unchangeable  hymns  fixed 
the  memory  of  events,  and  perpetually  revived  the  tra¬ 
ditions.  Doubtless  we  should  be  wrong  in  believing 
that  these  traditions  had  the  exactitude  of  the  annals. 


230 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  Til. 


The  desire  to  praise  the  gods  might  be  stronger  than 
the  love  of  truth.  Still  they  must  have  been  at  least 
a  reflection  of  the  annals,  and  must  generally  have 
been  in  accord  with  them.  For  the  priests  who  drew 
up  and  who  read  the  annals  were  the  same  who  pre¬ 
sided  at  the  festivals  where  these  old  lays  were  sung. 

There  came  a  time,  too,  when  these  annals  were 
divulged.  Rome  finally  published  hers;  those  of  other 
Italian  cities  were  known  ;  the  priests  of  Greek  cities 
no  longer  made  any  scruple  of  relating  what  theirs 
contained.  Men  studied  and  compiled  from  these 
authentic  monuments.  There  was  formed  a  school  of 
learned  men  from  Varro  and  Verrius  Flaccus  to  Aulus 
Gellius  and  Macrobius.  Light  was  thrown  upon  all 
ancient  history.  Some  errors  were  corrected  which 
had  found  their  way  into  the  traditions,  and  which  the 
historians  of  the  preceding  period  had  repeated  :  men 
learned,  for  example,  that  Porsenna  had  taken  Rome, 
and  that  gold  had  been  paid  to  the  Gauls.  The  age 
of  historical  criticism  had  begun.  But  it  is  worthy  of 
remark  that  this  criticism,  which  went  back  to  the 
sources,  and  studied  the  annals,  found  nothing  there 
that  authorized  it  to  reject  the  historic  whole  which 
writers  like  Herod otrs  and  Livy  had  constructed. 


s 


CHAI.  IX. 


GOVEKNMENT,  THE  KING. 


231 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Government  of  the  City.  The  King. 

1.  Religious  Authority  of  the  King, 

We  should  not  picture  to  ourselves  a  city,  at  its 
foundation,  deliberating  on  the  form  of  government 
that  it  will  adopt,  devising  and  discussing  its  laws, 
and  preparing  its  institutions.  It  was  not  thus  that 
laws  were  made  and  that  governments  were  estab¬ 
lished.  The  political  institutions  of  the  city  were  born 
with  the  city  itself  and  on  the  same  day  with  it. 
Every  member  of  the  city  carried  them  within  himself^ 
for  the  germ  of  them  was  in  each  man’s  belief  and 
religion. 

Religion  prescribed  that  the  hearth  should  always 
have  a  supreme  priest.  It  did  not  permit  the  sacer¬ 
dotal  authority  to  be  divided.  The  domestic  hearth 
had  a  high  priest,  who  was  the  father  of  the  family; 
the  hearth  of  the  cury,  had  its  curio,  or  phratriarch  ; 
every  tribe,  in  the  same  manner,  had  its  religious  chief, 
whom  the  Athenians  called  the  kin"  of  the  tribe.  It 

O 

was  also  necessary  that  the  city  religion  should  have 
its  supreme  priest. 

This  priest  of  the  public  hearth  bore  the  name  of 
king.  Sometimes  they  gave  him  other  titles.  As  he 
was  especially  the  priest  of  the  prytaneum,  the  Greeks 
preferred  to  call  him  the  prytane;  sometimes  also  they 
called  him  the  archon.  Under  these  different  names 
of  king,  prytane,  and  archon  we  are  to  see  a  personage 
who  is,  above  all,  the  chief  of  the  worship.  He  keeps 
up  the  fire,  offers  the  sacrifice,  pronounces  the  prayer, 
and  presides  at  the  religious  repasts. 


232 


THE  CITS'. 


BOOK  III. 


It  may  be  worth  while  to  offer  proof  that  the  ancient 
kings  of  Greece  and  Italy  were  priests.  In  Aristotle 
we  read,  “  The  care  of  the  public  sacrifices  of  the  city 
belongs,  according  to  religious  custom,  not  to  special 
priests,  but  to  those  men  who  derive  their  dignity 
from  the  hearth,  and  who  in  one  place  are  called  kings, 
in  another  prytanes,  and  in  a  third  archons.” 1  Thus 
writes  Aristotle,  the  man  who  best  understood  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  Greek  cities.  This  passage,  so  precise, 
shows,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  three  words  king , 
prytane ,  and  archon  were  a  long  time  synonymous, 
bo  true  is  this,  that  an  ancient  historian,  Charon  of 
Lampsacus,  writing  a  book  about  the  kings  of  Lace¬ 
daemon,  entitled  it  Archons  and  Prytanes  of  the  Lace- 
dœmonians .2  It  shows  also  that  the  personage  to 
whom  was  applied  indifferently  one  of  these  three 
names  —  perhaps  all  of  them  at  the  same  time  —  was 
the  priest  of  the  city,  and  that  the  worship  of  the 
public  hearth  was  the  source  of  his  dignity  and  power. 

.This  sacerdotal  character  of  primitive  royalty  is 
clearly  indicated  by  the  ancient  writers.  In  Æschylus 
the  daughters  of  Danaus  address  the  king  of  Argos 
in  these  terms:  “  1  hou  art  the  supreme  prytane,  and 
watchest  over  the  hearth  of  this  country.” 3  In  Eurip¬ 
ides,  Orestes,  the  murderer  of  his  mother,  says  to 
Menelaus,  uIt  is  just  that  I,  the  son  of  Agamemnon, 
should  reign  at  Argos.”  And  Menelaus  replies,  «  Art 
thou,  then,  fit,  —  thou,  a  murderer,  —  to  touch  the  ves¬ 
sels  of  lustral  water  for  the  sacrifices  ?  Art  thou  fit  to 
slay  the  victims  ?’  4  I  he  principal  office  of  a  king  was, 

1  Aristotle,  Polit.,  VIL  5,  11  (VI.  8).  Comp.  Dionysius, 
II.  65. 

2  Suidas,  v.  Xiçwv.  3  Æsch.,  Supp.,  361  (357). 

4  Euripides,  Orestes ,  1605. 


CHaP.  IX. 


THE  KING. 


233 


therefore,  to  perform  religious  ceremonies.  An  ancient 
king  of  Sicyon  was  deposed  because,  having  soiled  his 
hands  by  a  murder,  he  was  no  longer  in  a  condition  to 
offer  the  sacrifices.1  Being  no  longer  fit  for  a  priest,  he 
could  no  longer  be  kin sr. 

Homer  and  Virgil  represent  the  kings  as  continually 
occupied  with  sacred  ceremonies.  We  know  from 
Demosthenes  that  the  ancient  kings  of  Attica  per¬ 
formed  themselves  all  the  sacrifices  that  were  pre¬ 
scribed  by  the  religion  of  the  city;  and  from  Xenophon 
that  the  kings  of  Sparta  were  the  chiefs  of  the  Lacedae¬ 
monian  îeligion.2  The  Etruscan  Lucumones  were,  at 
the  same  time,  magistrates,  military  chiefs,  and  pontiffs.3 

The  case  was  not  at  all  different  with  the  Roman 
kings.  Tradition  always  represents  them  as  priests. 
The  first  was  Romulus,  who  was  acquainted  with  the 
science  of  augury,  and  who  founded  the  city  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  religious  rites.  The  second  was  Nuraa: 
he  fulfilled,  Livy  tells  us,  the  greater  part  of  the  priestly 
functions;  but  he  foresaw  that  his  successors,  often 
having  wars  to  maintain,  would  not  always  be  able  to 
take  care  of  the  sacrifices,  and  instituted  the  flamens  to 
replace  the  kings  when  the  latter  were  absent  from 
Rome.  Thus  the  Roman  priesthood  was  only  an 
emanation  from  the  primitive  royalty. 

These  king-priests  were  inaugurated  with  a  religious 
ceremonial.  The  new  king,  being  conducted  to  the 
summit  of  the  Capitoline  Hill,  was  seated  upon  a  stone 
seat,  his  face  turned  towards  the  south.  On  his  left 
was  seated  an  augur,  his  head  covered  with  sacred 
fillets,  and  holding  in  his  hand  the  augurs  staff.  He 

1  Nie.  Damas.,  Frag.  Hist.  Gr.,  t.  III.  p.  394. 

*  Demosthenes,  in  Near.  Xenophon,  Gov .  Laced.,  13. 

*  Virgil,  X.  175.  Livy,  V.  1.  Censorious,  4. 


234 


TME  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


marked  off  certain  lines  in  the  heavens,  pronounced  a 
prayer,  and,  placing  his  hand  upon  the  king’s  head, 
supplicated  the  gods  to  show,  by  a  visible  sign,  that 
this  chief  was  agreeable  to  them.  Then,  as  soon  as  a 
flash  of  lightning  or  a  flight  of  birds  had  manifested  the 
will  of  the  gods,  the  new  king  took  possession  of  his 
charge.  Livy  describes  this  ceremony  for  the  installa¬ 
tion  of  Numa;  Dionysius  assures  us  that  it  took  place 
for  all  the  kings,  and  after  the  kings,  for  the  consuls; 
he  adds  that  it  was  still  performed  in  his  time.1  There 
was  a  reason  for  such  a  custom;  as  the  king  was  to  be 
supreme  chief  of  the  religion,  and  the  safety  of  the  city 
was  to  depend  upon  his  prayers  and  sacrifices,  it  was 
important  to  make  sure,  in  the  first  place,  that  this 
king  was  accepted  by  the  gods. 

The  ancients  have  left  us  no  account  of  the  manner 
in  which  the  Spartan  kings  were  elected  ;  but  we  may 
be  certain  that  the  will  of  the  gods  was  consulted  in 
the  election.  We  can  even  see  from  old  customs 
which  survived  to  the  end  of  the  history  of  Sparta, 
that  the  ceremony  by  which  the  gods  were  consulted 
was  renewed  every  nine  years;  so  fearful  were  they 
that  the  king  might  lose  the  favor  of  the  divinity. 
“Every  nine  years,”  says  Plutarch,  “the  Ephors  chose 
a  very  clear  night,  but  without  a  moon,  and  sat  in 
silence,  with  their  eyes  fixed  upon  the  heavens.  If  they 
saw  a  star  cross  from  one  quarter  of  the  heavens  to  the 
other,  this  indicated  that  their  kings  were  guilty  of 
some  neglect  of  the  gods.  The  kings  were  then  sus¬ 
pended  from  their  duties  till  an  oracle  came  from 
Delphi  to  relieve  them  from  their  forfeiture.” 8 

1  Livy,  I.  18.  Dionysius,  II.  6;  IV.  80. 

*  Plutarch,  Agis ,  11. 


CHAP.  IX. 


THE  KING. 


235 


2.  Political  Authority  of  the  King . 

Just  as  in  the  family  the  authority  was  inherent  in 
the  priesthood,  and  the  father,  as  head  of  the  domestic 
worship,  wras  at  the  same  time  judge  and  master,  so 
the  high  priest  of  the  city  was  at  the  same  time  its 
political  chief.  The  altar  —  to  borrow  an  expression  of 
Aristotle  —  conferred  dignity  and  power  upon  him. 
There  is  nothing  to  surprise  us  in  this  confusion  of  the 
priesthood  and  the  civil  power.  We  find  it  at  the 
beginning  of  almost  all  societies,  either  because  during 
the  infancy  of  a  people  nothing  but  religion  will  com¬ 
mand  their  obedience,  or  because  our  nature  feels  the 
need  of  not  submitting  to  any  other  power  than  that 
of  a  moral  idea. 

We  have  seen  how  the  religion  of  the  city  was 
mixed  up  with  everything.  Man  felt  himself  at  every 
moment  dependent  upon  his  gods,  and  consequently 
upon  this  priest,  who  was  placed  between  them  and 
himself.  This  priest  watched  over  the  sacred  fire  ;  it 
was,  as  Pindar  says,  his  daily  worship  that  saved  the 
city  every  day.1  He  it  was  who  knew  the  formulas 
and  prayers  which  the  gods  could  not  resist  ;  at  the 
moment  of  combat,  he  it  was  who  slew  the  victim,  and 
drew  upon  the  army  the  protection  of  the  gods.  It 
was  very  natural  that  a  man  armed  with  such  a  power 
should  be  accepted  and  recognized  as  a  leader.  From 
the  fact  that  religion  had  so  great  a  part  in  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  in  the  courts,  and  in  war,  it  necessarily  fol¬ 
lowed  that  the  priest  was  at  the  same  time  magistrate, 
judge,  and  military  chief.  “  The  kings  of  Sparta,”  says 
Aristotle, 2  “  have  three  attributes  :  they  perform  the 


1  Pindar,  Nem .,  XI.  5. 


*  Aristotle,  Politics ,  III.  9. 


236 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


sacrifices,  they  command  in  war,  and  they  administer 
justice.”  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  expresses  himself 
in  the  same  manner  regarding  the  kings  of  Rome. 

The  constitutional  rules  of  this  monarchy  were  very 
simple;  it  was  not  necessary  to  seek  long  for  them; 
they  flowed  from  the  rules  of  the  worship  themselves. 
The  founder,  who  had  established  the  sacred  fire,  was 
naturally  the  first  priest.  Hereditary  succession  was 
the  constant  rule,  in  the  beginning,  for  the  transmission 
of  this  worship.  Whether  the  sacred  fire  was  that  of  a 
family  or  that  of  a  city,  religion  prescribed  that  the 
care  of  supporting  it  should  always  pass  from  father  to 
son.  The  priesthood  was  therefore  hereditary,  and  the 
power  went  with  it.1 

A  well-known  fact  in  the  history  of  Greece  proves, 
in  a  striking  manner  that,  in  the  beginning,  the  kingly 
office  belonged  to  the  man  who  set  up  the  hearth  of  the 
city.  We  know  that  the  population  of  the  Ionian  col¬ 
onies  was  not  composed  of  Athenians,  but  that  it  was 
a  mixture  of  Pelasgians,  Æolians,  Abantes,  and  Cad- 
means.  Yet  all  the  hearths  of  the  cities  were  placed 
by  the  members  of  the  religious  family  of  Codrus. 

It  followed  that  these  colonists,  instead  of  having  for 
leaders  men  of  their  own  race,  —  the  Pelasse  a  Pelassfian, 
the  Abantes  an  Abantian,  the  Æolians  an  Æolian,  —  all 
gave  the  royalty  in  their  twelve  cities  to  the  Codridae.2 
Assuredly  these  persons  had  not  acquired  their  author¬ 
ity  by  force,  for  they  were  almost  the  only  Athenians 
in  this  numerous  agglomeration.  But  as  they  had 

1  We  speak  here  only  of  the  early  ages  of  cities.  We  shall 
see,  farther  on,  that  a  time  came  when  hereditary  succession 
ceased  to  be  the  rule,  and  we  shall  explain  why  at  Home  royally 
was  not  hereditary. 

*  Herodotus,  I.  142-148.  Pausanias,  VI.  Strabo. 


s 


CHAP.  IX. 


THE  KING. 


237 


established  the  sacred  fires,  it  was  their  office  to  main¬ 
tain  them.  The  royalty  was,  therefore,  bestowed  upon 
them  without  a  contest,  and  remained  hereditary  in 
their  families.  Battus  had  founded  Cyrene  in  Africa  ; 
and  the  Battiadæ  were  a  long  time  in  possession  of 
the  royal  dignity  there.  Protis  founded  Marseilles; 
and  the  Protiadae,  from  father  to  son,  performed  the 
priestly  office  there,  and  enjoyed  great  privileges. 

It  was  not  force,  then,  that  created  chiefs  and  kings 
in  those  ancient  cities.  It  would  not  be  correct  to  say 
that  the  first  man  who  was  king  there  was  a  lucky 
soldier.  Authority  flowed  from  the  worship  of  the  sa¬ 
cred  fire.  Religion  created  the  king  in  the  city,  as  it 
had  made  the  family  chief  in  the  house.  A  belief,  an 
unquestionable  and  imperious  belief,  declared  that  the 
hereditary  priest  of  the  hearth  was  the  depositary  of 
the  holy  duties  and  the  guardian  of  the  gods.  How 
could  one  hesitate  to  obey  such  a  man  ?  A  king  was 
i  sacred  being;  Saadeïç  legoi,  says  Pindar.  Men  saw 
in  him,  not  a  complete  god,  but  at  least  “the  most 
powerful  man  to  call  down  the  anger  of  the  gods;”  1 
the  man  without  whose  aid  no  prayer  was  heard,  no 
sacrifice  accepted. 

This  royalty,  semi-religious,  semi-political,  was  estab¬ 
lished  in  all  cities,  from  their  foundation,  without  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  kings,  without  resistance  on  the  part 
of  the  subjects.  We  do  not  see  at  the  origin  of  the 
ancient  nations  those  fluctuations  and  strimcdes  which 

o  o 

mark  the  painful  establishment  of  modern  societies. 
We  know  how  long  a  time  was  necessary,  after  the  fall 
of  the  Roman  empire,  to  restore  the  rules  of  a  regular 
society.  Europe  saw,  during  several  centuries,  opposing 

Sophocles,  Œdipus  Rex ,  34. 


i 


238 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


principles  dispute  for  the  government  of  the  people, 
and  the  people  at  times  rejecting  all  social  organization! 
No  such  spectacle  was  seen  in  ancient  Greece,  or  in 
ancient  Italy;  their  history  does  not  commence  with 
conflicts:  revolutions  appeared  only  at  the  close. 

Among  these  populations,  society  formed  slowly  and 
by  degrees,  while  passing  from  the  family  to  the  tribe, 
and  from  the  tribe  to  the  city,  but  without  shock  and 
without  a  struggle.  Royalty  was  established  quite 
naturally,  in  the  family  first,  in  the  city  later.  It  was 
not  devised  in  the  imagination  of  a  few;  it  grew  out 
of  a  necessity  that  was  manifest  to  the  eyes  of  all. 
During  long  ages  it  was  peaceable,  honored,  and  obeyed. 
The  kings  had  no  need  of  material  force  ;  they  had 
neither  army  nor  treasury;  but,  sustained  by  a  faith 
that  had  a  powerful  influence  over  the  mind,  their 
authority  was  sacred  and  inviolable. 

A  revolution,  of  which  we  shall  speak  farther  on, 
overturned  the  kingly  power  in  every  city  ;  but  when 
it  fell,  it  left  no  rancor  in  the  hearts  of  men.  That 
contempt,  mingled  with  hatred,  which  ordinarily  at- 
tends  on  fallen  grandeur,  it  never  experienced.  Fallen 
as  it  was,  the  affection  and  respect  of  men  remained 
attached  to  its  memory.  In  Greece  we  see  something 
which  is  not  very  common  in  history  :  in  the  cities 
where  the  royal  family  did  not  become  extinct,  not 
only  was  it  not  expelled,  but  the  same  men  who  had 
despoiled  it  of  power  continued  to  honor  it.  At 
Ephesus,  at  Marseilles,  at  Gyrene,  the  royal  family,  de¬ 
prived  of  power,  remained  surrounded  with  the  respect 

of  the  people,  and  even  retained  the  title  and  insignia 
of  royalty.1  & 

1  Strabo,  IV.  171;  XIV.  632;  XIII.  608 
676 


Athenæus,  XIII. 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  MAGISTRACY. 


239 


The  people  established  republican  institutions;  but 
the  name  of  king,  far  from  becoming  a  reproach,  re¬ 
mained  a  venerated  title.  It  is  customary  to  say  that 
this  word  was  odious  and  despised.  This  is  a  singular 
error;  the  Romans  applied  it  to  the  gods  in  their 
prayers.  If  the  usurpers  dared  not  assume  this  title,  it 
was  not  because  it  was  odious,  but  rather  because  it 
was  sacred.1  In  Greece  monarchy  was  many  times 
restored  in  the  cities;  but  the  new  monarchs  never 
claimed  the  right  to  be  called  kings ,  and  were  satisfied 
to  be  called  tyrants.  What  made  the  difference  in 
these  names  was  not  the  more  or  fewer  moral  qualities 
found  in  the  sovereign.  It  was  not  the  custom  to  call 
a  good  prince  king  and  a  bad  one  tyrant.  Religion 
was  what  distinguished  one  from  the  other.  The  prim¬ 
itive  kings  had  performed  the  duties  of  priests,  and  had 
derived  their  authority  from  the  sacred  fire  ;  the  tyrants 
of  a  later  epoch  were  merely  political  chiefs,  and  owed 
their  elevation  to  force  or  election  only. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Magistracy. 

The  union  of  the  political  authority  and  the  priest¬ 
hood  in  the  same  person  did  not  cease  with  royalty. 
The  revolution  which  established  the  republican  régime , 
did  not  separate  functions  whose  connection  appeared 
natural,  and  was  then  the  fundamental  law  of  human 
gociety.  The  magistrate  who  replaced  the  king  was, 

1  Sanditas  regvm,  Suetonius,  Julius  Cccsar ,  6.  Livy,  III. 
39.  Cicero,  Repub .,  I.  33. 


240 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IH 


like  him,  a  priest,  and  at  the  same  time  a  politica. 
chief. 

Sometimes  this  annual  magistrate  bore  the  sacred 
title  of  king.1 2  In  other  places  the  title  of  prytane* 
which  he  retained,  indicated  his  principal  function. 
In  other  cities  the  title  of  archon  prevailed.  At  Thebes, 
for  example,  the  first  magistrate  was  called  by  this 
name;  but  what  Plutarch  says  of  this  office  shows  that 
it  differed  little  from  the  priesthood.  This  archon,  dur¬ 
ing  his  term  of  office,  was  required  to  wear  a  crown,3 
as  became  a  priest  ;  religion  forbade  him  to  let  his  hair 
grow,  or  to  carry  any  iron  object  upon  his  person  —  a 
regulation  which  made  him  resemble  the  Roman  flamen. 
The  city  of  Platæa  also  had  an  archon,  and  the  religion 
of  this  city  required  that,  during  his  whole  term  of 
office,  he  should  be  clothed  in  white4 *  —  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  sacred  color. 

The  Athenian  archons,  when  entering  upon  their 
duty,  ascended  the  Acropolis,  their  heads  crowned  with 
myrtle,  and  offered  a  sacrifice  to  the  divinity  of  the 
city.0  It  was  also  a  custom  for  them,  in  the  exercise 
of  their  duty,  to  wear  a  crown  of  leaves  upon  their 
heads.6  Now,  it  is  certain  that  the  crown,  which  in  the 
course  of  time  became,  and  has  remained,  the  symbol 
of  power,  was  then  only  a  religious  emblem,  an  ex 
terior  sign,  which  accompanied  prayer  and  sacrifice.7 

1  At  Megara,  at  Samothrace.  Livy,  XLY.  5.  Eoeckh,  Corp. 
Inscr .,  1052. 

2  Pindar,  Nem.,  XI.  3  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  40. 

4  Plutarch,  Aristides ,  21. 

5  Thucydides,  VIII.  70.  Apollodorus,  Fragment ,  21  (coll. 

Didot). 

6  Demosthenes,  in  Meidiam ,  33.  Æschines,  in  Timarch .,  19. 

7  Plutarch,  Nicias ,  3;  Phocion ,  37.  Cicero,  in  Verr.,  IV.  50 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  MAGISTRACY. 


241 


Among  the  nine  archons  the  one  called  king  wan 
especially  a  religious  chief  ;  but  each  of  his  colleagues 
had  some  sacerdotal  function  to  fulfil,  some  sacrifice  to 
offer  to  the  gods.1 * 

The  Greeks  had  a  general  expression  to  designate 
magistrates;  they  said  ol  èv  lèlsi,  —  which  signified, 
literally,  those  who  are  to  accomplish  the  sacrifice;3 
an  old  expression,  indicating  the  idea  that  was  enter¬ 
tained  of  the  magistrate  in  early  times.  Pindar  says 
of  these  personages  that,  by  the  offerings  which  they 
make  to  the  sacred  fire,  they  assure  the  safety  of  the 
city. 

At  Rome  the  first  act  of  the  consul  was  to  offer  a 
sacrifice  in  the  forum.  Victims  were  brought  to  the 
public  square;  when  the  pontiff  had  declared  them 
worthy  of  being  offered,  the  consul  immolated  them 
with  his  own  hand,  while  a  herald  enjoined  a  religious 
silence  upon  the  multitude,  and  a  flute-player  sounded 
the  sacred  air.3  A  few  days  later,  the  consul  repaired 
to  Lavinium,  whence  the  Roman  penates  had  come,  and 
offered  another  sacrifice. 

When  we  examine  the  character  of  the  magistrate 
among  the  ancients  with  a  little  attention,  we  see 
how  slightly  he  resembles  the  chief  of  state  of  modern 
societies.  Priesthood,  justice,  and  command  are  con¬ 
founded  in  his  person.  He  represents  the  city,  which  is 
a  religious  association,  as  much,  at  least,  as  a  political 
one.  He  has  in  his  hands  the  auspices,  the  rites, 

1  Pollux,  VIII.  ch.  IX.  Lycurgus  (coll.  Didot),  t.  II.  p.  362. 

s  Thucydides,  I.  10;  II.  10;  III.  36;  IV.  65.  Comp.  Herod¬ 
otus,  I.  133;  III.  18;  Æschylus,  Pers.,  204;  Again .,  1202; 
Euripides,  Track.,  238. 

3  Cicero,  De  Lege  Agr.,  II.  34.  Livy,  XXI.  63.  Macrobiua, 
III.  3. 


16 


242 


THB  CITY. 


BOOK  m, 


prayer,  the  protection  of  the  gods.  A  consul  is  some¬ 
thing  more  than  a  man  ;  he  is  a  mediator  between  man 
>and  the  divinity.  To  his  fortune  is  attached  the  pub¬ 
lic  fortune;  he  is,  as  it  were,  the  tutelary  genius  of  the 
city.  The  death  of  a  consul  is  calamitous  to  the  re¬ 
public.1  When  the  consul  Claudius  Nero  left  his  army 
to  fly  to  the  succor  of  his  colleague,  Livy  shows  us 
into  how  great  alarm  Rome  was  thrown  for  the  fate 
of  this  army  ;  this  was  because,  deprived  of  its  chief, 
the  army  was  at  the  same  time  deprived  of  its  celestial 
protection  ;  with  the  consul,  the  auspices  have  gone  — 
that  is  to  say,  religion  and  the  gods. 

The  other  Roman  magistracies,  which  were,  in  a 
certain  sense,  members  successively  detached  from  the 
consulship,  like  that  oflice,  united  sacerdotal  and  politi¬ 
cal  attributes.  We  have  seen  the  censor,  on  certain 
days,  with  a  crown  upon  his  head,  offering  a  sacrifice  in 
the  name  of  the  city,  and  striking  down  a  victim  with 
his  own  hand.  The  pretors  and  the  curule  ediles  pre¬ 
sided  at  religious  festivals.2  There  was  no  magistrate 
who  had  not  some  sacred  act  to  perform  ;  for,  in  the 
minds  of  the  ancients,  all  authority  ought  to  have  some 
connection  with  religion.  The  tribunes  of  the  people 
were  the  only  ones  who  had  no  sacrifice  to  offer;  but 
they  were  not  counted  among  the  real  magistrates. 
We  shall  see,  farther  along,  that  their  authority  was  of 
an  entirely  exceptional  nature. 

The  sacerdotal  character  belonging  to  the  magis¬ 
trate  is  shown,  above  all,  in  the  manner  of  his  election. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  ancients  the  votes  of  men  were  not 
sufficient  to  establish  the  ruler  of  a  city.  So  long  as 

1  Livy,  XXVII.  40. 

•  Varro,  L.  L.  VI.  54.  Athenæus,  XIV.  79. 


s 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  MAGISTRACY. 


243 


the  primitive  royalty  lasted,  it  appeared  natural  that 
this  ruler  should  be  designated  by  birth,  by  virtue  of 
the  religious  law  which  prescribed  that  the  son  should 
succeed  the  father  in  every  priestly  office  ;  birth 
seemed  sufficiently  to  reveal  the  will  of  the  gods. 
When  revolutions  had  everywhere  suppressed  this  roy¬ 
alty,  men  appear  to  have  sought,  in  the  place  of  birth, 
a  mode  of  election  which  the  gods  might  not  have  to 
disavow.  The  Athenians,  like  many  Greek  peoples, 
saw  no  better  way  than  to  draw  lots;  but  we  must  not 
form  a  wrong  idea  of  this  procedure,  which  has  been 
made  a  subject  of  reproach  against  the  Athenian  de¬ 
mocracy  ;  and  for  this  reason  it  is  necessary  that  we 
attempt  to  penetrate  the  view  of  the  ancients  on  this 
point.  For  them  the  lot  was  not  chance  ;  it  was  the 
revelation  of  the  divine  will.  Just  as  they  had  re¬ 
course  to  it  in  the  temples  to  discover  the  secrets  of  the 
gods,  so  the  city  had  recourse  to  it  for  the  choice  of  its 
magistrate.  It  was  believed  that  the  gods  designated 
the  most  worthy  by  making  his  name  leap  out  of  the 
urn.  This  was  the  opinion  of  Plato  himself,  who  says, 
“He  on  whom  the  lot  falls  is  the  ruler,  and  is  dear  to 
the  gods;  and  this  we  affirm  to  be  quite  just.  The 
officers  of  the  temple  shall  be  appointed  by  lot  ;  in  this 
way  their  election  will  be  committed  to  God,  who  will 
do  what  is  agreeable  to  him.”  The  city  believed  that  in 
this  manner  it  received  its  magistrates  from  the  gods.1 

1  Plato,  Laws ,  III.  690;  VI.  759.  Comp.  Demetrius  Phale- 
reus,  Fragm.,  4.  It  is  surprising  that  modern  historians  rep¬ 
resent  the  drawing  of  lots  as  an  invention  of  the  Athenian 
democracy.  It  was,  on  the  contrary,  in  full  rigor  under  the  rule 
of  the  aristocracy  (Plutarch,  Pericles ,  9),  and  appears  to  have 
been  as  old  as  the  archonship  itself.  Nor  is  it  a  democratic 
procedure  :  we  know,  indeed,  that  even  in  the  time  of  Lysias 


244 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IU 


Aflairs  are  substantially  the  same  at  Rome.  The 
designation  of  a  consul  did  not  belong  to  men.  The 
will  or  the  caprice  of  the  people  could  not  legitimately 
create  a  magistrate.  This,  therefore,  was  the  manner 
in  which  the  consul  was  chosen.  A  magistrate  in 
charge  —  that  is  to  say,  a  man  already  in  possession  of 
the  sacred  character  and  of  the  auspices — indicated 
among  the  dies  fasti  the  one  on  which  the  consul 
ought  to  be  named.  During  the  night  which  preceded 
this  day,  he  watched  in  the  open  air,  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  the  heavens,  observing  the  signs  'which  the  gods 
sent,  whilst  he  pronounced  mentally  the  name  of  some 
candidate  for  the  magistracy.1  If  the  presages  were 
favorable,  it  was  because  the  gods  accepted  the  candi¬ 
date.  The  next  day  the  people  assembled  in  the  Cam¬ 
pus  Martins  ;  the  same  one  who  had  consulted  the 
gods  presided  at  the  assembly.  He  pronounced  in  a 
loud  voice  the  names  of  the  candidates  concerning 
whom  he  had  taken  the  auspices.  If  among  those  who 

and  of  Demosthenes,  the  names  of  all  the  citizens  were  not  put 
in  the  urn  (Lysias,  Orat.,  de  Tnvalido ,  c.  13;  in  Andocidem,  c. 
4)  :  for  a  still  stronger  reason  was  this  true  when  the  Eupatrids 
only,  or  the  Pentakosiomedimni  could  be  archons.  Passages  of 
Plato  show  clearly  what  idea  the  ancients  had  of  the  drawing  of 
lots  ;  the  thought  which  caused  it  to  be  employed  for  magistrate- 
priests  like  the  archons,  or  for  senators  charged  with  holy  duties 
like  the  prytanes,  was  a  religious  idea,  and  not  a  notion  of  equal¬ 
ity.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  when  the  democracy  gained 
the  upper  hand,  it  reserved  the  selection  by  lot  for  the  choice 
of  archons,  to  whom  it  left  no  real  power,  and  gave  it  up  in  the 
choice  of  strategi,  who  then  had  the  true  authority.  So  that 
there  was  drawing  of  lots  for  magistracies  which  dated  from  the 
aristocratic  age,  and  election  for  those  that  dated  from  the  age 
of  the  democracy. 

1  Valerius  Maximus,  I.  1,  3.  Plutarch,  Marcellus ,  5. 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  MAGISTBACY. 


245 


sought  the  consulship  there  was  one  for  whom  the 
auspices  had  not  been  favorable,  his  name  was  omitted.1 
The  people  voted  upon  those  names  only  which  had 
been  pronounced  by  the  president.2  If  the  president 
named  but  two  candidates,  the  people  necessarily 
voted  for  them;  if  he  named  three,  they  chose  two  of 
them.  The  assembly  never  had  the  right  to  vote  for 
other  men  than  those  whom  the  president  had  desig¬ 
nated  ;  for  the  auspices  had  been  for  those  only,  and 
for  those  only  had  the  consent  of  the  gods  been  as¬ 
sured. 

This  mode  of  election,  which  was  scrupulously  follow¬ 
ed  in  the  first  ages  of  the  republic,  explains  some  pecu¬ 
liarities  of  Roman  history  which  at  first  surprise  us.  We 
see,  for  example,  that  quite  frequently  the  people  are 
unanimous  for  two  men  for  the  consulshij ,  and  still 
they  are  not  elected.  This  is  because  the  president 
has  not  taken  the  auspices  concerning  these  two  men, 
or  the  auspices  have  not  been  favorable.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  have  seen  the  people  elect  to  the  consulship 
men  whom  they  detested.3  This  was  because  the  pres¬ 
ident  pronounced  only  these  two  names.  It  was  abso¬ 
lutely  necessary  to  vote  for  them,  for  the  vote  was  not 
expressed  by  “yes”  or  “no;”  every  vote  was  required 
to  contain  two  names,  and  none  could  be  written  ex¬ 
cept  those  that  had  been  designated.  The  peojle, 
when  candidates  were  presented  who  were  odious  to 
them,  could  indeed  show  their  displeasure  by  retiring 
without  a  vote  ;  but  there  always  remained  in  the  en¬ 
closure  citizens  enough  to  make  up  a  quorum. 

1  Livy,  XXXIX.  39.  Velleius,  II.  92.  Valerius  Maximus, 
til.  8,  3. 

*  Dionysius,  IV.  84;  V.  19;  V.  72;  V.  77;  VI.  49. 

*  Livy,  II.  42  ;  II.  43. 


246 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


Here  we  see  how  great  was  the  power  of  the  presi¬ 
dent  of  the  comitia,  and  we  no  longer  wonder  at  the 
expression,  Créât  comities ,  which  referred  not  to  the 
people,  but  to  the  president  of  the  comitia.  It  was 
of  him,  indeed,  rather  than  of  the  people,  that  it  might 
be  said,  “He  creates  the  consuls;”  for  he  was  the  one 
who  discovered  the  will  of  the  gods.  If  he  did  not  cre¬ 
ate  the  consuls,  it  was  at  least  through  him  that  the 
gods  created  them.  The  power  of  the  people  went  no 
farther  than  to  ratify  the  election,  or,  at  most,  to  se¬ 
lect  among  three  or  four  names,  if  the  auspices  had 
been  equally  favorable  to  three  or  four  candidates. 

Doubtless  this  method  of  procedure  was  very  advan¬ 
tageous  to  the  Roman  aristocracy  ;  but  we  should 
deceive  ourselves  if  we  saw  in  all  this  merely  a  ruse 
invented  by  them.  Such  a  ruse  was  never  thought  of 
in  the  ages  when  they  believed  in  this  religion.  Politi¬ 
cally  it  was  useless  in  the  first  ages,  since  at  that  time 
the  patricians  had  a  majority  in  voting.  It  might  even 
have  turned  against  them,  by  investing  a  single  man 
with  exorbitant  power.  The  only  explanation  that  can 
be  given  of  this  custom,  or,  rather,  of  these  rites  of 
election,  is,  that  every  one  then  sincerely  believed  that 
the  choice  of  the  magistrates  belonged,  not  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  but  to  the  gods.  The  man  in  whose  hands  the 
religion  and  the  fortune  of  the  city  were  to  be  placed, 
ought  to  be  revealed  by  the  divine  voice. 

The  first  rule  for  the  election  of  a  magistrate  is  the 
one  given  by  Cicero:  “That  he  be  named  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  rites.”  If,  several  mont  ns  afterwards,  t  he 
senate  was  told  that  some  rite  had  been  neglected,  or 
badly  performed,  it  ordered  the  consuls  to  abdicate, 
and  they  obeyed.  The  examples  are  very  numerous; 
and  if,  in  case  of  two  or  three  of  them,  we  may  believe 


\ 


CHAP.  X. 


THE  MAGISTRACY. 


247 


that  the  senate  was  very  glad  to  be  rid  of  an  ill-qual¬ 
ified  or  ill-intentioned  consul,  the  greater  part  of  the 
time,  on  the  contrary,  we  cannot  impute  other  motives 
to  them  than  religious  scruples. 

When  the  lot  or  the  auspices  had  designated  an 
archon  or  a  consul,  there  was,  it  is  true,  a  sort  of  proof 
by  which  the  merits  of  the  newly-elected  officer  were 
examined.  But  even  this  will  show  us  what  the  city 
wished  to  find  in  its  magistrate;  and  we  shall  see  that 
it  sought  not  the  most  courageous  warrior,  not  the 
ablest  and  most  upright  man  in  peace,  but  the  one 
best  loved  by  the  gods.  Indeed,  the  Athenian  senate 
inquired  of  the  magistrate  elect  if  he  had  any  bodily 
defect,  if  he  possessed  a  domestic  god,  if  his  family 
had  always  been  faithful  to  his  worship,  if  he  himself 
had  always  fulfilled  his  duties  towards  the  dead.1  Why 
these  questions?  Because  a  bodily  defect  —  a  sign  of 
the  anger  of  the  gods — rendered  a  man  unfit  to  fill 
any  priestly  office,  and  consequently  to  exercise  any 
magistracy;  because  he  who  had  no  family  worship 
ought  not  to  have  a  national  worship,  and  was  not 
qualified  to  offer  the  sacrifices  in  the  name  of  the  city; 
because,  if  his  family  had  not  always  been  faithful  to 
his  worship,  that  is  to  say,  if  one  of  his  ancestors  had 
committed  one  of  those  acts  which  affect  religion, —  the 
hearth  was  forever  contaminated,  and  the  descendants 
were  detested  by  the  gods  ;  finally,  because,  if  he  him¬ 
self  had  neglected  the  tomb  of  his  dead,  he  was  ex¬ 
posed  to  their  dangerous  anger,  and  was  pursued  by 
invisible  enemies.  The  city  would  have  been  very 
daring  to  have  confided  its  fortunes  to  such  a  man. 

1  Plato,  Laws ,  VI.  Xenophon,  Mem.,  II.  Pollux,  VIII.  85, 
86,  95 


248 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  HI. 


These  are  the  principal  questions  that  were  addressed 
to  one  who  was  about  to  become  a  magistrate.  It 
appeared  that  men  did  not  trouble  themselves  about 
his  character  or  his  knowledge.  They  tried  especially 
to  assure  themselves  that  he  was  qualified  for  the  priest¬ 
ly  office,  and  that  the  religion  of  the  city  would  not  be 
compromised  in  his  hands. 

This  sort  of  examination  was  also  in  use  at  Rome. 
We  have  not,  it  is  true,  any  information  as  to  the  ques¬ 
tions  which  the  consul  was  required  to  answer.  But 
it  is  enough  to  know  that  this  examination  was  made 
by  the  pontiffs.1 


CHAPTER  XL 
The  Law. 

Among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  as  among  the  Hin¬ 
dus,  law  was  at  first  a  part  of  religion.  The  ancient 
codes  of  the  cities  were  a  collection  of  rites,,  liturgical 
directions,  and  prayers,  joined  with  legislative  regula¬ 
tions.  The  laws  concerning  property  and  those  con¬ 
cerning  succession  were  scattered  about  in  the  midst 
of  rules  for  sacrifices,  for  burial,  and  for  the  worship  of 
the  dead. 

What  remains  to  us  of  the  oldest  laws  of  Rome, 
which  were  called  the  Royal  Laws,  relates  as  often  to 
the  worship  as  to  the  relations  of  civil  life.  One  for¬ 
bade  a  guilty  woman  to  approach  the  altars  ;  another 
forbade  certain  dishes  to  be  served  in  the  sacred  re¬ 
pasts;  a  third  prescribed  what  religious  ceremony  a 

1  Dionysius,  II.  73. 


s 


CHAP.  XI. 


THE  LAW. 


249 


victorious  general  ought  to  perform  on  re-entering  the 
city.  The  code  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  although  more 
recent,  still  contain  minute  regulations  concerning  the 
religious  rites  of  sepulture.  The  work  of  Solon  was 
at  the  same  time  a  code,  a  constitution,  and  a  ritual  ;  it 
regulated  the  order  of  sacrifices,  and  the  price  of  vic¬ 
tims,  as  well  as  the  marriage  rites  and  the  worship  of 
the  dead. 

Cicero,  in  his  Laws,  traces  a  plan  of  legislation  which 
is  not  entirely  imaginary.  In  the  substance  as  in  the 
form  of  his  code,  he  imitates  the  ancient  legislators. 
Now,  these  are  the  first  laws  that  he  writes:  “  Let  men 
approach  the  gods  with  purity  ;  let  the  temples  of  the 
ancestors  and  the  dwelling  of  the  Lares  be  kept  up; 
let  the  priests  employ  in  the  sacred  repasts  only  the 
prescribed  kinds  of  food  ;  let  every  one  offer  to  the 
Manes  the  worship  that  is  due  them.”  Assuredly  the 
Roman  philosopher  troubled  himself  little  about  the  old 
religion  of  the  Lares  and  Manes;  but  he  was  tracing  a 
code  in  imitation  of  the  ancient  codes,  and  he  believed 
himself  bound  to  insert  rules  of  worship. 

At  Rome  it  was  a  recognized  truth  that  no  one  could 
be  a  good  pontiff  who  did  not  know  the  law,  and,  con¬ 
versely,  that  no  one  could  know  the  law  if  he  did  not 
understand  questions  relating  to  religion.  The  pon¬ 
tiffs  were  for  a  long  time  the  only  jurisconsults.  As 
there  was  hardly  an  act  of  life  which  had  not  some 
relation  to  religion,  it  followed  that  almost  everything 
was  submitted  to  the  decision  of  these  priests,  and 
that  they  were  the  only  competent  judges  in  an  infinite 
number  of  cases.  All  disputes  regarding  marriage, 
divorce,  and  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  infants, 
were  carried  to  their  tribunal.  They  were  judges  in 
cases  of  incest  as  well  as  of  celibacy.  As  adoption 


250 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


affected  religion,  it  could  not  take  place  without  the 
consent  of  the  pontiff.  To  make  a  will  was  to  break 
the  order  that  religion  had  established  for  the  trans¬ 
mission  of  property  and  of  the  worship.  The  will, 
therefore,  in  the  beginning,  required  to  be  authorized 
by  the  pontiff  As  the  limits  of  every  man’s  land  were 
established  by  religion,  whenever  two  neighbors  had  a 
dispute  about  boundaries,  they  had  to  plead  before  the 
priests  called  fratres  arvales.  This  explains  why  the 
same  men  were  pontiffs  and  jurists  —  law  and  religion 
were  but  one.1 

At  Athens  the  archon  and  the  king  had  very  nearly 
the  same  judicial  functions  as  the  Roman  pontiff.2 

The  origin  of  ancient  laws  appears  clearly.  No  man 
invented  them.  Solon,  Lycurgus,  Minos,  Numa,  might 
have  reduced  the  laws  of  their  cities  to  writing,  but  they 
could  not  have  made  them.  If  we  understand  by  legis¬ 
lator  a  man  who  creates  a  code  by  the  power  of  his 
genius,  and  who  imposes  it  upon  other  men,  this  legisla¬ 
tor  never  existed  among  the  ancients.  Nor  did  ancient 
law  originate  with  the  votes  of  the  people.  The  idea 
that  a  certain  number  of  votes  might  make  a  law  did  not 
appear  in  the  cities  till  very  late,  and  only  after  two 
revolutions  had  transformed  them.  Up  to  that  time 
laws  had  appeared  to  men  as  something  ancient,  im¬ 
mutable,  and  venerable.  As  old  as  the  city  itself,  the 
founder  had  established  them  at  the  same  time  that  he 

1  Hence  this  old  definition,  which  the  jurisconsults  pre¬ 
served  even  to  Justinian’s  time  —  Jurisprudentia  est  rerum 
divinarum  atque  humanarum  notitia.  Cf.  Cicero,  De  Legib. 
IT.  9;  II.  19;  De  Arusp.  Resp.,1 .  Dionysius,  II.  73.  Tacitus 
Ann.,  I.  10;  Hist.,  I.  15.  Dion  Cassius,  XLVIII.  44.  Pliny, 
H  H.,  XVIII.  2.  Aulus  Gellius,  V.  19  :  XV.  27. 

*  Pollux,  VIII.  90. 


s 


CHAP.  XI. 


THE  LAW. 


251 


established  the  hearth  —  inoresque  viris  et  moenia 
ponit.  He  instituted  them  at  the  same  time  that  he 
instituted  the  religion.  Still  it  could  not  be  said  that 
he  had  prepared  them  himself.  Who,  then,  was  the 
true  author  of  them?  When  we  spoke  above  of  the 
organization  of  the  family,  and  of  the  Greek  and  Ro¬ 
man  laws  which  regulated  property,  succession,  wills, 
and  adoption,  we  observed  how  exactly  these  laws  cor 
responded  to  the  beliefs  of  ancient  generations.  If  we 
compare  these  laws  with  natural  equity,  we  often  find 
them  opposed  to  it,  and  we  can  easily  see  that  it  was 
not  in  the  notion  of  absolute  right  and  in  the  sentiment 
of  justice,  that  they  were  sought  for.  But  place  these 
laws  by  the  side  of  the  worship  of  the  dead  and  of  the 
sacred  fire,  compare  them  with  the  rules  of  this  primi¬ 
tive  religion,  and  they  appear  in  perfect  accord  with 
all  this. 

Man  did  not  need  to  study  his  conscience  and  say, 
“This  is  just;  this  is  unjust.”  Ancient  law  was  not 
produced  in  this  way.  But  man  believed  that  the 
sacred  hearth,  in  virtue  of  the  religious  law,  passed  from 
father  to  son  ;  from  this  it  followed  that  the  house  was 
hereditary  property.  The  man  who  had  buried  his  fa¬ 
ther  in  his  field  believed  that  the  sjfirit  of  the  dead  one 
took  possession  of  this  field  forever,  and  required  a 
perpetual  worship  of  his  posterity.  As  a  result  of  this, 
the  field,  the  domain  of  the  dead,  and  place  of  sacrifice, 
became  the  inalienable  property  of  a  family.  Religion 
said,  “The  son  continues  the  worship  —  not  the  daugh¬ 
ter;”  and  the  law  said,  with  the  religion,  “The  son 
inherits  —  the  daughter  does  not  inherit;  the  nephew 
by  the  males  inherits,  but  not  the  nephew  on  the  female 
side.”  This  was  the  manner  in  which  the  laws  were 
made;  they  presented  themselves  without  being  sought. 


252 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


They  were  the  direct  and  necessary  consequence  of 
the  belief;  they  were  religion  itself  applied  to  the  re¬ 
lations  of  men  among  themselves. 

The  ancients  said  their  laws  came  from  the  gods. 
The  Cretans  attributed  their  laws,  not  to  Minos,  but 
to  Jupiter.  The  Lacedaemonians  believed  that  their 
legislator  was  not  Lycurgus,  but  Apollo.  The  Romans 
believed  that  Numa  wrote  under  the  dictation  of  one 
of  the  most  powerful  divinities  of  ancient  Italy  —  the 
goddess  Egeria.  The  Etruscans  had  received  their 
laws  from  the  god  Tages.  There  is  truth  in  all  these 
traditions.  1  he  veritable  legislator  among  the  ancients 
was  not  a  man,  but  the  religious  belief  which  men  en¬ 
tertained. 

1  he  laws  long  remained  sacred.  Even  at  the  time 
when  it  was  admitted  that  the  will  of  a  man  or  the 
votes  ot  a  people  might  make  a  law,  it  was  still  neces- 
essary  that  religion  should  be  consulted,  and  at  least 
that  its  consent  should  be  obtained.  At  Rome  it  was 
not  believed  that  a  unanimous  vote  was  sufficient  to 
make  a  law  binding  ;  the  decision  of  the  people  re¬ 
quired  to  be  ratified  by  the  pontiffs,  and  the  augurs 
weie  required  to  attest  that  the  gods  were  favorable 
to  the  proposed  law.1 

One  day,  when  the  tribunes  of  the  people  wished  to 
have  a  law  adopted  by  the  assembly  of  the  tribes,  a 
patrician  said  to  them,  “  What  right  have  you  to  make 
a  new  law,  or  to  touch  existing  laws?  You,  who  have 
not  the  auspices,  you,  who,  in  your  assemblies,  perform 
no  religious  acts,  what  have  you  in  common  with  reli¬ 
gion  and  sacred  things,  among  which  must  be  reckoned 
the  laws  ?” 2 

1  Dionysius,  IX.  41  ;  IX.  49. 

*  Dionysius,  X.  4.  Livy,  III.  31. 


L'HAP.  XT. 


THE  LAW. 


•2  63 


From  this  we  can  understand  the  respect  and  at¬ 
tachment  which  the  ancients  long  had  for  their  laws. 
In  them  they  saw  no  human  work,  but  one  whose 
origin  was  holy.  It  was  no  vain  word  when  Plato  said, 
“  To  obey  the  laws  is  to  obey  the  gods.”  He  does  no 
more  than  to  express  the  Greek  idea,  when,  in  Crito, 
he  exhibits  Socrates  giving  his  life  because  the  laws 
demanded  it  of  him.  Before  Socrates,  there  was  writ¬ 
ten  upon  the  rock  of  Thermopylæ,  “Passer-by,  go  and 
tell  Sparta  that  we  lie  here  in  obedience  to  its  laws.” 
The  law  among  the  ancients  was  always  holy,  and  in 
the  time  of  royalty  it  was  the  queen  of  the  kings.  In 
the  time  of  the  republic  it  was  the  queen  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  To  disobey  it  was  sacrilege. 

In  principle  the  laws  were  immutable,  since  they 
were  divine.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  they  were 
never  abrogated.  Men  could  indeed  make  new  ofces, 
but  old  ones  still  remained,  however  they  might  conflict 
with  the  new  ones.  The  code  of  Draco  was  not  abol¬ 
ished  by  that  of  Solon;  1  nor  were  the  Royal  Laws  by 
those  of  the  Twelve  Tables.  The  stone  on  which  the 
laws  were  engraved  was  inviolable  ;  or,  at  most,  the 
least  scrupulous  only  thought  themselves  permitted 
to  turn  it  round.  This  principle  was  the  great  cause 
of  the  confusion  which  is  observable  among  ancient 
laws. 

Contradictory  laws  and  those  of  different  epochs 
were  found  together,  and  all  claimed  respect.  In  an 
oration  of  Isæus  we  find  two  men  contesting  an  inher¬ 
itance  ;  each  quotes  a  law  in  his  favor;  the  two  laws 
are  absolute  contraries,  and  are  equally  sacred.  In  the 
same  manner  the  code  of  Manu  preserves  the  ancient 


1  Andocides,  I.  82,  83.  Demosthenes,  in  Everg 71 


254 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


law  which  establishes  primogeniture,  and  has  another 
by  the  side  of  it  which  enjoins  an  equal  division  among 
the  brothers. 

The  ancient  law  never  gave  any  reasons.  Why 
should  it  ?  It  was  not  bound  to  give  them  ;  it  existed 
because  the  gods  had  made  it.  It  was  not  discussed 
—  it  was  imposed  ;  it  was  a  work  of  authority  ;  men 
obeyed  it  because  they  had  faith  in  it. 

During:  long;  generations  the  laws  were  not  written; 
they  were  transmitted  from  father  to  son,  with  the 
creed  and  the  formula  of  prayer.  They  were  a  sacred 
tradition,  which  was  perpetuated  around  the  family 
hearth,  or  the  hearth  of  the  city. 

The  day  on  which  men  began  to  commit  them  to 
writing,  they  consigned  them  to  the  sacred  books,  to 
the  rituals,  among  prayers  and  ceremonies.  Varro  cites 
an  ancient  law  of  the  city  of  Tusculum,  and  adds  that 
he  read  it  in  the  sacred  books  of  that  city.1  Dionysius 
of  Halicarnassus,  who  had  consulted  the  original  docu¬ 
ments,  says  that  before  the  time  of  the  Decemvirs  all 
the  written  laws  at  Rome  were  to  be  found  in  the  books 
of  the  priests.2  Later  the  laws  were  removed  from  the 
rituals,  and  were  written  by  themselves  ;  but  the  cus¬ 
tom  of  depositing  them  in  a  temple  continued,  and 
priests  had  the  care  of  them. 

Written  or  unwritten,  these  laws  were  always  formu¬ 
lated  into  very  brief  sentences,  which  may  be  com¬ 
pared  in  form  to  the  verses  of  Leviticus,  or  the  slocas 
of  the  book  of  Manu.  It  is  quite  probable,  even,  that 
the  laws  were  rhythimical.3  According  to  Aristotle, 
before  the  laws  were  written,  they  were  sung.4  Traces 


1  Varro,  L.  L.,  VI.  16. 
3  Ælian,  V.  IL,  II.  39. 


2  Dionysius,  X.  I. 

4  Aristotle,  Probl .,  XIX.  28. 


CHAP.  XT. 


THE  LAW. 


255 


of  this  custom  have  remained  in  language;  the  Ro¬ 
mans  called  the  laws  carmina  —  verses  ;  the  Greeks  said 
vo/uoi  —  songs.1 

These  ancient  verses  were  invariable  texts.  To 
change  a  letter  of  them,  to  displace  a  word,  to  alter 
the  rhythm,  was  to  destroy  the  law  itself,  by  destroy¬ 
ing:  the  sacred  form  under  which  it  was  revealed  to 
man.  The  law  was  like  prayer,  which  was  agreeable 
to  the  divinity  only  on  condition  that  it  was  recited 
correctly,  and  which  became  impious  if  a  single  word 
in  it  was  changed.  In  primitive  law,  the  exterior,  the 
letter,  is  everything  ;  there  is  no  need  of  seeking  the 
sense  or  spirit  of  it.  The  value  of  the  law  is  not  in 
the  moral  principle  that  it  contains,  but  in  the  words 
that  make  up  the  formula.  Its  force  is  in  the  sacred 
words  that  compose  it. 

Among  the  ancients,  and  especially  at  Rome,  the 
idea  of  law  was  inseparably  connected  with  certain 
sacramental  words.  If,  for  example,  it  was  a  question 
of  contract,  one  was  expected  to  say,  Dari  spondes  f 
and  the  other  was  expected  to  reply,  Spondeo.  If  these 
words  were  not  pronounced,  there  was  no  contract.  In 
vain  the  creditor  came  to  demand  payment  of  the  debt 
—  the  debtor  owed  nothing  ;  for  what  placed  a  man  un¬ 
der  obligation  in  this  ancient  law  was  not  conscience, 
or  the  sentiment  of  justice  ;  it  was  the  sacred  formula. 
When  this  formula  was  pronounced  between  two  men, 
it  established  between  them  a  Wal  obligation.  Where 

O  o 

there  was  no  formula,  the  obligation  did  not  exist. 

The  strange  forms  of  ancient  Roman  legal  procedure 

1  Niyw,  to  divide;  voyog,  division,  measure,  rhythm,  song. 
See  Plutarch,  De  Musica ,  p.  1133;  Pindar,  Pyth.,  XII.  41* 
fragm.y  190  (Edit.  Hey  ne).  Scholiast  on  Aristophanes,  Knights , 
9;  Nôfioi  xa/LovvTCit  o[  tig  ôtoùç  vpvoi. 


256 


THE  CITY. 


book  m. 


would  not  surprise  us  if  we  but  recollected  that  an* 
cient  law  was  a  religion,  a  sacred  text,  and  justice  a  col¬ 
lection  of  rites.  The  plaintiff  pursues  with  the  law  — 
agit  lege.  By  the  text  of  the  law  he  seizes  his  adver¬ 
sary:  but  let  him  be  on  his  guard  ;  to  have  the  law  on 
his  side,  he  must  know  its  terms,  and  pronounce  them 
exactly.  If  he  speaks  one  word  for  another,  the  law 
exists  no  longer  for  him,  and  cannot  defend  him. 
Gaius  gives  an  account  of  a  man  whose  vines  had  been 
cut  by  his  neighbor;  the  fact  was  settled;  he  pronounced 
the  law.  But  the  law  sa:d  trees  ;  he  pronounced  vines, 
and  lost  his  case. 

Repeating  the  law  was  not  sufficient.  There  was 
also  needed  an  accompaniment  of  exterior  signs, 
which  were,  so  to  say,  the  rites  of  this  religious  cere¬ 
mony  called  a  contract,  or  a  case  in  law.  For  this 
reason  at  every  sale  the  little  piece  of  copper  and 
the  balance  were  employed.  To  buy  an  article,  it  was 
necessary  to  touch  it  with  the  hand  —  mancipatio  ;  and 
if  there  was  a  dispute  about  a  piece  of  property,  there 
was  a  feigned  combat —  manuum  consertio.  Hence  were 
derived  the  forms  of  liberation,  those  of  emancipation, 
those  of  a  legal  action,  and  all  the  pantomime  of  legal 
procedure. 

As  law  was  a  part  of  religion,  it  participated  in  the 
mysterious  character  of  all  this  religion  of  the  cities. 
The  legal  formulas,  like  those  of  religion,  were  kept  se¬ 
cret.  They  were  concealed  from  the  stranger,  and  even 
from  the  plebeian.  This  was  not  because  the  patricians 
had  calculated  that  they  should  possess  a  great  power 
in  the  exclusive  knowledge  of  the  law,  but  because  the 
law,  by  its  origin  and  nature,  long  appeared  to  be  a 
mystery,  to  which  one  could  be  initiated  only  after 
having  first  been  initiated  into  the  national  worship 
and  the  domestic  worship. 


CH\P.  XI. 


THE  LAW. 


257 


The  religious  origin  of  ancient  law  also  explains  to 
us  one  of  the  principal  characteristics  of  this  law.  Re¬ 
ligion  was  purely  civil,  that  is  to  say,  peculiar  to  each 
city.  There  could  flow  from  it,  therefore,  only  a  civil 
law.  But  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  the  sense  which 
this  word  had  among  the  ancients.  When  they  said 
that  the  law  was  civil, — jus  civile ,  vôijoi  nolmxol, —  they 
did  not  understand  simply  that  every  city  had  its  code, 
as  in  our  day  every  state  has  a  code.  They  meant 
that  their  laws  had  no  force,  or  power,  except  between 
the  members  of  the  same  city.  To  live  in  a  city  did 
not  make  one  subject  to  its  laws  and  place  him  under 
their  protection  ;  one  had  to  be  a  citizen.  The  law 
did  not  exist  for  the  slave  ;  no  more  did  it  exist  for 
the  stranger. 

We  shall  see,  further  along,  that  the  stranger  domi¬ 
ciled  in  a  city  could  be  neither  a  proprietor  there,  nor 
an  heir,  nor  a  testator  ;  he  could  not  make  a  contract 
of  any  sort,  or  appear  before  the  ordinary  tribunals  of 
the  citizens.  At  Athens,  if  he  happened  to  be  the 
creditor  of  a  citizen,  he  could  not  sue  him  in  the  courts 
for  the  payment  of  the  debt,  as  the  law  recognized  no 
contract  as  valid  for  him. 

These  provisions  of  ancient  law  were  perfectly  logi¬ 
cal.  Law  was  not  born  of  the  idea  of  justice,  but  of 
religion,  and  was  not  conceived  as  going  beyond  it. 
In  order  that  there  should  be  a  lemal  relation  between 

O 

two  men,  it  was  necessary  that  there  should  already 
exist  a  religious  relation;  that  is  to  say,  that  they 
should  worship  at  the  same  hearth  and  have  the  same 
sacrifices.  When  this  religious  community  did  not 
exist,  it  did  not  seem  that  there  could  be  any  legal  re¬ 
lation.  Now,  neither  the  stranger  nor  the  slave  had 
any  part  in  the  religion  of  the  city.  A  foreigner  and  a 

17 


258 


*tiE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


citizen  in  ght  live  side  by  side  during  long  years,  with¬ 
out  one’s  thinking  of  the  possibility  of  a  legal  relation 
being  established  between  them.  Law  was  nothing 
more  than  one  phase  of  religion.  Where  there  was  no 
common  religion,  there  was  no  common  law. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Citizen  and  the  Stranger. 

The  citizen  was  recognized  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
a  part  in  the  religion  of  the  city,  and  it  was  from  this 
participation  that  he  derived  all  his  civil  and  political 
rights.  If  he  renounced  the  worship,  he  renounced  the 
rights.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  public  meals, 
which  were  the  principal  ceremony  of  the  national  wor¬ 
ship.  Now,  at  Sparta,  one  who  did  not  join  in  tkes<, 
even  if  it  was  not  his  fault,  ceased  at  once  to  be  count' 
id  among  the  citizens.1  At  Athens,  one  who  did  not 
take  part  in  the  festivals  of  the  national  gods  lost  the 
rights  of  a  citizen.2  At  Rome,  it  was  necessary  to  have 
been  present  at  the  sacred  ceremony  of  the  lustration, 
in  order  to  enjoy  political  rights.3  The  man  who  had 
not  taken  part  in  this  —  that  is  to  say,  who  had  not 
joined  in  the  common  prayer  and  the  sacrifice  —  lost 
his  citizenship  until  the  next  lustration. 

'  Aristotle,  Politics ,  II.  6,  21  (II.  7). 

*  Boeckh,  Corp.  Inscr. ,  3641,  b. 

s  Velleius,  II.  15.  Soldiers  on  a  campaign  were  exet^u, 
but  the  censor  was  required  to  have  their  names  taken,  so  that, 
having  been  registered  in  the  ceremony,  they  were  considered 
as  present. 


CHAP.  XII.  THE  CITIZEN  AND  THE  STRANGER.  259 


If  we  wished  to  give  an  exact  definition  of  a  citizen, 
we  should  say  that  it  was  a  man  who  had  the  religion 
of  the  city.1  The  stranger,  on  the  contrary,  is  one  who 
has  not  access  to  the  worship,  one  whom  the  gods  of 
the  city  do  not  protect,  and  who  has  not  even  the  right 
to  invoke  them.  For  these  national  gods  do  not  wish  to 
receive  prayers  and  offering  except  from  citizens  ;  they 
repulse  the  stranger;  entrance  into  their  temples  is  for¬ 
bidden  to  him,  and  his  presence  during  the  sacrifice  is  a 
sacrilege.  Evidence  of  this  ancient  sentiment  of  repul¬ 
sion  has  remained  in  one  of  the  principal  rites  of  Roman 
worship.  The  pontiff,  when  he  sacrifices  in  the  open 
air,  must  have  his  head  veiled:  “  For  before  the  sacred 
fires  in  the  religious  act  which  is  offered  to  the  national 
gods,  the  face  of  a  stranger  must  not  appear  to  the 
pontiff;  the  auspices  would  be  disturbed.  ’ 2  A  sacred 
object  which  fell  for  a  moment  into  the  hands  of  a 
stranger  at  once  became  profane.  It  could  not  recover 
its  religious  character  except  by  an  expiatory  ceremo¬ 
ny.3  If  the  enemy  seized  upon  a  city,  and  the  citizens 
succeeded  in  recovering  it,  above  all  things  it  was  im¬ 
portant  that  the  temples  should  be  purified  and  all  the 
fires  extinguished  and  rekindled.  The  presence  of  the 
stranger  had  defiled  them.4 

Thus  religion  established  between  the  citizen  and  the 
stranger  a  profound  and  ineffaceable  distinction.  This 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Neceram,  113,  114.  Being  a  citizen  was 
called,  in  Greek,  oi  vreÀtiv,  that  is  to  say,  making  the  sacrifice 
together,  or  ^dtivai  [{qwv  xui  oenwv. 

2  Virgil,  Æn.,  III.  406.  Festus,  v.  Exesto  :  Lidor  in  qui- 
bvsdam  sacris  clamitabat,  hostis  exesto.  IJostis ,  as  we  know, 
meant  stranger  (Macrobius  I.  17)  ;  hostilis  facie %  in  Virgil, 
means  the  face  of  a  stranger. 

3  Digest ,  XI.  tit.  G,  36. 

*  Plutarch,  Aristides ,  20.  Livy,  V.  60. 


260 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


same  religion,  so  long  as  it  held  its  sway  over  the 
minds  of  men,  forbade  the  right  of  citizenship  to  be 
granted  to  a  stranger.  In  the  time  of  Herodotus, 
Sparta  had  accorded  it  to  no  one  except  a  prophet; 
and  even  for  this  the  formal  command  of  the  oracle 
was  necessary.  Athens  granted  it  sometimes;  but 
with  what  precautions!  First,  it  was  necessary  that 
the  united  people  should  vote  by  secret  ballot  for  the 
admission  of  the  stranger.  Even  this  was  nothing  as 
yet;  nine  days  afterwards  a  second  assembly  had  to 
confirm  the  previous  vote,  and  in  this  second  case  six 
thousand  votes  were  required  in  favor  of  the  admis¬ 
sion —  a  number  which  will  appear  enormous  when  we 
recollect  that  it  was  very  rare  for  an  Athenian  assem¬ 
bly  to  comprise  so  many  citizens.  After  this  a  vote  of 
the  senate  was  required  to  confirm  the  decision  of  this 
double  assembly.  Finally,  any  citizen  could  oppose  a 
sort  of  veto,  and  attack  the  decree  as  contrary  to  the 
ancient  laws.  Certainly  there  was  no  other  public  act 
where  the  legislator  was  surrounded  with  so  many  dif¬ 
ficulties  and  precautions  as  that  which  conferred  upon 
a  stranger  the  title  of  citizen.  The  formalities  to  go 
through  were  not  near  so  great  in  declaring  war,  or  in 
passing  a  new  law.  Why  should  these  men  oppose  so 
many  obstacles  to  a  stranger  who  wished  to  become  a 
citizen?  Assuredly  they  did  not  fear  that  in  the  po¬ 
litical  assemblies  his  vote  would  turn  the  balance. 
Demosthenes  gives  us  the  true  motive  and  the  true 
thought  of  the  Athenians  :  “  It  is  because  the  purity 
of  the  sacrifices  must  be  preserved.”  To  exclude  the 
stranger  was  to  “  watch  over  the  sacred  ceremonies.” 
To  admit  a  stranger  among  the  citizens  wras  “to  give 
him  a  part  in  the  religion  and  in  the  sacrifices.”  1  Now 

1  Demosthenes,  in  Neesramx  89,  91,  92,  113,  114. 


CHAP.  XII.  THE  CITIZEN  AND  THE  STRANGES. 


261 


for  such  an  act  the  people  did  not  consider  themselves 
entirely  free,  and  were  seized  with  religious  scruples; 
for  they  knew  that  the  national  gods  were  disposed  to 
repulse  the  stranger,  and  that  the  sacrifices  would  per¬ 
haps  be  rendered  useless  by  the  presence  of  the  new 
comer.  The  gift  of  the  rights  of  a  citizen  to  a  stranger 
was  a  real  violation  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
the  national  religion  ;  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that,  in 
the  beginning,  the  city  was  so  sparing  of  it.  We  must 
also  note  that  the  man  admitted*  to  citizenship  with  so 
much  difficulty  could  be  neither  archon  nor  priest. 
The  city,  indeed,  permitted  him  to  take  part  in  its 
worship,  but  as  to  presiding  at  it,  that  would  have 
been  too  much. 

No  one  could  become  a  citizen  at  Athens  if  he  was  a 
citizen  in  another  city  ;  1  for  it  was  a  religious  impos¬ 
sibility  to  be  at  the  same  time  a  member  of  two  cities, 
as  it  also  was  to  be  a  member  of  two  families.  One 
could  not  have  two  religions  at  the  same  time. 

The  participation  in  the  worship  carried  with  it  the 
possession  of  rights.  As  the  citizen  might  assist  in  the 
sacrifice  which  preceded  the  assembly,  he  could  also 
vote  at  the  assembly.  As  he  could  perform  the  sacri¬ 
fices  in  the  name  of  the  city,  he  might  be  a  prytane 
and  an  archon.  Having  the  religion  of  the  city,  he 
might  claim  rights  under  its  laws,  and  perform  all  the 
ceremonies  of  legal  procedure. 

The  stranger,  on  the  contrary,  having  no  part  in  the 
religion,  had  none  in  the  law.  If  he  entered  the  sacred 
enclosure  which  the  priests  had  traced  for  the  assem¬ 
bly,  he  was  punished  with  death.  The  laws  of  the 
city  did  uot  exist  tor  him.  If  he  had  committed  a 

1  Plutarch,  Solon ,  24.  Cicero,  Pro  Cacina,  34. 


262 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


crime,  be  was  treated  as  a  slave,  and  punished  without 
process  of  law,  the  city  owing  him  no  legal  protection.1 
When  men  arrived  at  that  stage  that  they  felt  the  need 
of  having  laws  for  the  stranger,  it  was  necessary  to 
establish  an  exceptional  tribunal.  At  Rome,  in  order 
to  judge  the  alien,  the  pretor  had  to  become  an  alien 
himself — prœtor  peregrinus.  At  Athens  the  judge 
of  foreigners  was  the  polemarch  —  that  is  to  say,  the 
magistrate  who  was  charged  with  the  cares  of  war,  and 
of  all  transactions  with  the  enemy.2 

Neither  at  Rome  nor  at  Athens  could  a  foreigner  be 
a  proprietor.3  He  could  not  marry;  or,  if  he  married, 
his  marriage  was  not  recognized,  and  his  children  were 
reputed  illegitimate.4  lie  could  not  make  a  contract 
with  a  citizen;  at  any  rate,  the  law  did  not  recognize 
such  a  contract  as  valid.  At  first  he  could  take  uo 
part  in  commerce.5  The  Roman  law  forbade  him  to 
inherit  from  a  citizen,  and  even  forbade  a  citizen  to  in¬ 
herit  from  him.6  They  pushed  this  principle  so  far, 
that  if  a  foreigner  obtained  the  rights  of  a  citizen  with 
out  his  son,  born  before  this  event,  obtaining  the  same 
favor,  the  son  became  a  foreigner  in  regard  to  his 
father,  and  could  not  inherit  from  him.7  The  distinc¬ 
tion  between  citizen  and  foreigner  was  stronger  than 
the  natural  tie  between  father  and  son. 

At  first  blush  it  would  seem  as  if  the  aim  had  been 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  III.  1,  3.  Plato,  Laws ,  VI. 

2  Demosthenes,  in  Neoeram ,  49.  Lysias,  in  Pancleonem . 

3  Gaius, /r.  234. 

4  Gaius,  I.  67.  Ulpian,  V.  4-9.  Paulu»,  II.  9.  Aristophanes, 
Birds,  1652. 

0  Ulpian,  XIX.  4.  Demosthenes,  Pro  Phorm.;  in  Eubul 

9  Cicero,  Pro  Archia,  5.  Gaius,  II.  110. 

7  lausanias,  VIII.  43. 


CHAP.  711.  'f HE  CITIZEN  AND  THE  STRANGER. 


203 


to  establish  a  s  ystem  that  should  be  vexatious  towards 

•> 

foreigners  ;  but  there  was  nothing  of  this.  Athens  and 
Rome,  on  the  contrary,  gave  him  a  good  reception,  both 
for  commercial  and  political  reasons.  But  neither  their 
good  will  nor  their  interest  could  abolish  the  ancient 
laws  which  religion  had  established.  This  religion  did 
not  permit  the  stranger  to  become  a  proprietor,  because 
he  could  not  have  any  part  in  the  religious  soil  of  the 
city.  It  permitted  neither  the  foreigner  to  inherit  from 
the  citizen,  nor  the  citizen  to  inherit  from  the  foreigner; 
because  every  transmission  of  property  carried  with  it 
the  transmission  of  a  worship,  and  it  was  as  impossible 
for  the  citizen  to  perform  the  foreigner’s  worship  as  for 
the  foreigner  to  perform  the  citizen’s. 

Citizens  could  welcome  the  foreigner,  watch  over 
him,  even  esteem  him  if  he  wat  Aich  and  honorable; 
but  they  could  give  him  no  part  m  their  religion  or 
their  laws.  The  slave  in  certain  respects  was  better 
treated  than  he  was,  because  the  slave,  being  a  member 
of  the  family  whose  worship  he  shared,  was  connected 
with  the  city  through  his  master  ;  the  gods  protected 
him.  The  Roman  religion  taught,  therefore,  that  the 
tomb  of  the  slave  was  sacred,  but  that  the  foreigner’s 
was  not.1 

A  foreigner,  to  be  of  any  account  in  the  eyes  of  the 
law,  to  be  enabled  to  engage  in  trade,  to  make  con¬ 
tracts,  to  enjoy  his  property  securely,  to  have  the  benefit 
of  the  laws  of  the  city  to  protect  him,  must  become  the 
client  of  a  citizen.  Rome  and  Athens  required  every 
foreigner  to  adopt  a  patron.2  By  choosing  a  citizen  as 
a  patron  the  foreigner  became  connected  with  the  city, 

1  Digest,  XI.  tit.  7,  2;  XLVJI.  tit.  12,  4. 

*  Uarpocration,  nQoaTÙTrjç. 


264 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  Ill. 


Thenceforth  he  participated  in  some  of  the  benefits  of 
the  civil  law,  and  its  protection  was  secured. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Patriotism.  Exile. 

The  word  country ,  among  the  ancients,  signified  the 
land  of  the  fathers,  terra  patria  —  fatherland.  The 
fatherland  of  every  man  was  that  part  of  the  soil  which 
his  domestic  or  national  religion  had  sanctified,  the 
land  where  the  remains  of  his  ancestors  were  deposited, 
and  which  their  souls  occupied.  His  little  fatherland 
was  the  family  enclosure  with  its  tomb  and  its  hearth. 
The  great  fatherland  was  the  city,  with  its  prytaneum 
and  its  heroes,  with  its  sacred  enclosure  and  its  terri¬ 
tory  marked  out  by  religion.  “  Sacred  fatherland  ”  the 
Greeks  called  it.  Nor  was  it  a  vain  word  ;  this  soil 
was,  indeed,  sacred  to  man,  for  his  gods  dwelt  there. 
State,  city,  fatherland  :  these  words  were  no  abstraction, 
as  they  are  among  the  moderns;  they  really  represented 
a  group  of  local  divinities,  with  a  daily  worship  and 
beliefs  that  had  a  powerful  influence  over  the  soul. 

This  explains  the  patriotism  of  the  ancients  —  an  en¬ 
ergetic  sentiment,  which,  for  them,  was  the  supreme 
virtue  to  which  all  other  virtues  tended.  Whatever 
man  held  most  dear  was  associated  with  the  idea  of 
country.  In  it  he  found  his  property  his  security,  his 
(aws,  his  faith,  his  god.  Losing  it  he  lost  everything. 
It  was  almost  impossible  that  private  and  public  in¬ 
terests  could  conflict.  Plato  says,  “  Our  country  begets 
us,  nourishes  us,  educates  us  ;  ”  and  Sophocles  says. 
k  It  is  our  country  that  preserves  us.” 


CHAP.  xm. 


PATRIOTISM. 


265 


Such  a  country  is  not  simply  a  dwelling-place  for 
man.  Let  him  leave  its  sacred  walls,  let  him  pass  the 
sacred  limits  of  its  territory,  and  he  no  longer  finds  for 
himself  either  a  religion  or  a  social  tie  of  any  kind. 
Everywhere  else,  except  in  his  own  country,  he  is  out¬ 
side  the  regular  life  and  the  law;  everywhere  else  he 
is  without  a  god,  and  shut  out  from  all  moral  life. 
There  alone  he  enjoys  his  dignity  as  a  man,  and  his 
duties.  Only  there  can  he  be  a  man. 

Country  holds  man  attached  to  it  by  a  sacred  tie. 
He  must  love  it  as  he  loves  his  religion,  obey  it  as  he 
obeys  a  god.  He  must  give  himself  to  it  entirely.  He 
must  love  his  country,  whether  it  is  glorious  or  obscure, 
prosperous  or  unfortunate.  He  must  love  it  for  its 
favors,  and  love  it  also  for  its  severity.  Socrates,  un¬ 
justly  condemned  by  it,  must  not  love  it  the  less.  He 
must  love  it  as  Abraham  loved  his  God,  even  to  sacri¬ 
ficing  his  son  for  it.  Above  all,  one  must  know  how  to 
die  for  it.  The  Greek  or  Roman  rarely  dies  on  account 
of  his  devotion  to  a  man,  or  for  a  point  of  honor  ;  but 
to  his  country  he  owes  his  life.  For,  if  1ns  country  is 
attacked,  his  religion  is  attacked.  He  fights  literally 
for  his  altars  and  his  fires,  pro  arts  et  focis  /  for  if  the 
enemy  takes  his  city,  his  altars  are  overturned,  his  fires 
are  extinguished,  his  tombs  are  profaned,  his  gods  are 
destroyed,  his  worship  is  effaced.  The  piety  of  the 
ancients  was  love  of  country. 

The  possession  of  a  country  was  very  precious,  for 
the  ancients  imagined  few  chastisements  more  cruel 
than  to  be  deprived  of  it.  The  ordinary  punishment 
of  great  crimes  was  exile. 

Exile  was  really  the  interdiction  of  worship.  To 
exile  a  man  was,  according  to  the  formula  used  both 
by  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans,  to  cut  him  <  ff  from 


266 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


both  firo  and  water.1  By  this  fire  we  are  to  understand 
the  sacred  fire  of  the  hearth  ;  by  this  water  the  lustral 
fc’ater  which  served  for  the  sacrifices.  Exile,  therefore, 
placed  man  beyond  the  reach  ol  religion.  “  Let  him 
flee,”  were  the  words  of  the  sentence,  “  nor  ever  ap¬ 
proach  the  temples.  Let  no  citizen  speak  to  or  receive 
him  ;  let  no  one  admit  him  to  the  prayers  or  the  sacri¬ 
fices  ;  let  no  one  offer  the  lustral  water.”  2  Every  house 
was  defiled  by  his  presence.  The  man  who  received 
him  became  impure  by  his  touch.  “Any  one  who  shall 
have  eaten  or  drank  with  him,  or  who  shall  have 
touched  him,”  said  the  law,  “should  purify  himself” 
Under  the  ban  of  this  excommunication  the  exile  could 
take  part  in  no  religious  ceremony  ;  he  no  longer  had 
a  worship,  sacred  repasts,  or  prayers  j  he  was  disin¬ 
herited  of  his  portion  of  religion. 

We  can  easily  understand  that,  for  the  ancients,  God 
was  not  everywhere.  If  they  had  some  vague  idea  of 
a  God  of  the  universe,  this  was  not  the  one  whom  they 
considered  as  their  providence,  and  whom  they  invoked. 
Every  man’s  gods  were  those  who  inhabited  his  house, 
his  canton,  his  city.  The  exile,  on  leaving  his  country 
behind  him,  also  left  his  gods.  He  no  longer  found 
a  religion  that  could  console  and  protect  him  ;  he  no 
longer  felt  that  providence  was  watching  over  him  ; 
the  happiness  of  praying  was  taken  away.  All  that 
could  satisfy  the  needs  of  his  soul  was  far  away. 

Now,  religion  was  the  source  whence  flowed  civil 
and  political  rights.  The  exile,  therefore,  lost  all  this 
in  losing  his  religion  and  country.  Excluded  from  the 
city  worship,  he  saw  at  the  same  time  his  domestic 

'  Herodotus,  VII.  231.  Cratinus,  in  Atheneeus ,  XI.  3.  Cicero 
Pro  JDomo,  20.  Livy,  XXV.  4.  Ulpian,  X.  3. 

*  Sophocles,  Œdipus  Rex ,  239.  Plato,  Laws ,  IX.  881. 


CHAP.  xm. 


EXILE. 


‘267 


worship  taken  vom  him,  and  was  forced  to  extinguish 
his  hearth-fire.1  He  could  no  longer  hold  property  ;  his 
goods,  as  if  he  was  dead,  passed  to  his  children,  unless 
they  were  confiscated  to  the  profit  of  the  gods  or  of  the 
state.2  Having  no  longer  a  worship,  he  had  no  longer  a 
family;  he  ceased  to  be  a  husband  and  a  father.  His 
sons  were  no  longer  in  his  power;3  his  wife  was  no 
longer  his  wife,4  and  might  immediately  take  another 
husband.  Regains,  when  a  prisoner  of  the  enemy,  the 
Roman  law  looked  upon  as  an  exile;  if  the  senate  asked 
his  opinion,  he  refused  to  give  it,  because  an  exile  was 
no  longer  a  senator  ;  if  his  wife  and  children  ran  to  him, 
he  repulsed  their  embraces,  because  for  an  exile  there 
were  no  longer  wife  and  children,— 

“Fertur  pudicæ  conjugis  osculura 
Parvosque  natos,  ut  capitis  minor , 

A  se  removisse.”  5 

“  The  exile,”  says  Xenophon,  “  loses  home,  liberty, 
country,  wife,  and  children.”  When  he  dies,  he  has 
not  the  l  ight  to  be  buried  in  the  tomb  of  his  family, 
for  he  is  an  alien.6 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  ancient  republics  almost 
all  permitted  a  convict  to  escape  death  by  flight.  Exile 
did  not  seem  to  be  a  milder  punishment  than  death. 
The  Roman  jurists  called  it  capital  punishment. 

1  Ovid,  Trist.,  I.  3,  43. 

8  Pindar,  Pyth .,  IV.  517.  Plato,  Laws ,  IX.  877.  Diodorus, 
Kill.  49.  Dionysius,  XI.  46.  Livy,  III.  58. 

3  Institutes  of  Justinian,  I.  12.  Gaius,  I.  128. 

4  Dionysius,  VIII.  41. 

1  Horace,  Odes ,  III.  *  Thucydides,  I.  138. 


268 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

The  Municipal  Spirit. 

What  we  have  already  seen  of  ancient  institutions, 
and  above  all  of  ancient  beliefs,  has  enabled  us  to  obtain 
an  idea  of  the  profound  gulf  which  always  separated 
two  cities.  However  near  they  might  be  to  each  other, 
they  always  formed  two  completely  separate  societies. 
Between  them  there  was  much  more  than  the  distance 
which  separates  two  cities  to-day,  much  more  than  the 
frontier  which  separates  two  states;  their  gods  were 
not  the  same,  or  their  ceremonies,  or  their  prayers. 
The  worship  of  one  city  was  forbidden  to  men  of  a 
neighboring  city.  The  belief  was,  that  the  gods  of 
one  city  rejected  the  homage  and  prayers  of  any  one 
who  was  not  their  own  citizen. 

These  ancient  beliefs,  it  is  true,  were  modified  and 
softened  in  the  course  of  time;  but  they  had  been  in 
their  full  vigor  at  the  time  when  these  societies  were 
formed,  and  these  societies  always  preserved  the  im¬ 
pression  of  them. 

Two  facts  we  can  easily  understand:  first,  that  this 
religion,  peculiar  to  each  city,  must  have  established 
the  city  in  a  very  strong  an$  almost  unchangeable 
manner;  it  is,  indeed,  marvellous  how  long  this  social 
organization  lasted,  in  spite  of  all  its  faults  and  all  its 
chances  of  ruin  ;  second,  that  the  effect  of  this  religion, 
during  long  ages,  must  have  been  to  render  it  impossi¬ 
ble  to  establish  any  other  social  form  than  the  city. 

Every  city,  even  by  the  requirements  of  its  religion, 
was  independent.  It  was  necessary  that  each  should 


V 


CHAP.  XIV. 


THE  MUNICIPAL  SPIRIT. 


269 


have  its  particular  code,  since  each  had  its  own  re¬ 
ligion,  and  the  law  flowed  from  the  religion.  Each 
was  required  to  have  its  sovereign  tribunal,  and  there 
could  be  no  judicial  tribunal  superior  to  that  of  the 
city.  Each  had  its  religious  festivals  and  its  calendar; 
the  months  and  the  year  could  not  be  the  same  in  two 
cities,  as  the  series  of  religious  acts  was  different.  Each 
had  its  own  money,  which  at  first  was  marked  with  its 
religious  emblem.  Each  had  its  weights  and  measures. 
It  was  not  admitted  that  there  could  be  anything  com 
mon  between  two  cities.  The  line  of  demarcation  was 
so  profound  that  one  hardly  imagined  marriage  possible 
between  the  inhabitants  of  two  different  cities.  Such 
a  union  always  appeared  strange,  and  was  long  con¬ 
sidered  illegal.  The  legislation  of  Rome  and  that  of 
Athens  were  visibly  averse  to  admitting  it.  Nearly 
everywhere  children  born  of  such  a  marriage  were  con¬ 
founded  with  bastards,  and  deprived  of  the  rights  of 
citizens.  To  make  a  marriage  legal  between  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  two  cities,  it  was  necessary  that  there  should 
be  between  those  cities  a  particular  convention — jus 
connubii ,  èniyu/zla. 

Every  city  had  about  its  territory  a  line  of  sacred 
bounds.  This  was  the  horizon  of  its  national  religion 
and  of  its  gods.  Beyond  these  bounds  other  gods 
reigned,  and  another  worship  was  practised. 

The  most  salient  characteristic  of  the  history  of 
Greece  and  of  Italy,  before  the  Roman  conquest,  is  the 
excessive  division  of  property  and  the  spirit  of  isola¬ 
tion  in  each  city.  Greece  never  succeeded  in  forming  a 
single  state  ;  nor  did  the  Latin  or  the  Etruscan  cities,  or 
the  Samnite  tribes,  succeed  in  forming  a  compact  body. 
The  incurable  division  of  the  Greeks  has  been  attributed 
to  the  nature  of  their  country,  and  we  are  told  that  the 


270 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


mountain  .  which  intersect  each  other  establish  natural 
lines  of  demarcation  among  men.  But  there  were  no 
mountains  between  Thebes  and  Platæa,  between  Argos 
and  Sparta,  between  Sybaris  and  Crotona.  There 
were  none  between  the  cities  of  Latium,  or  between 
the  twelve  cities  of  Etruria.  Doubtless  physical  na¬ 
ture  has  some  influence  upon  the  history  of  a  people, 
but  the  beliefs  of  men  have  a  much  more  powerful 
one.  In  ancient  times  there  was  something  more  im- 
passable  than  mountains  between  two  neighboring 
cities,  there  were  the  series  of  sacred  bounds,  the  dif¬ 
ference  of  worship,  and  the  hatred  of  the  gods  towards 
the  foreigner. 

For  this  reason  the  ancients  were  never  able  to  es¬ 
tablish,  or  even  to  conceive  of,  any  other  social  organiza¬ 
tion  than  the  city.  Neither  the  Greeks,  nor  the  Latins, 
nor  even  the  Romans,  for  a  very  long  time,  ever  had  a 
thought  that  several  cities  might  be  united,  and  live  on 
an  equal  footing  under  the  same  government.  There 
might,  indeed,  be  an  alliance,  or  a  temporary  association, 
in  view  of  some  advantage  to  be  gained,  or  some 
danger  to  be  repelled  ;  but  there  was  never  a  complete 
union  ;  for  religion  made  of  every  city  a  body  which 
could  never  be  joined  to  another.  Isolation  was  the 
law  of  the  city. 

With  the  beliefs  and  the  religious  usages  which  we 
have  seen,  how  could  several  cities  ever  have  become 
united  in  one  state?  Men  did  not  understand  human 
association,  and  it  did  not  appear  regular,  unless  it  was 
founded  upon  religion.  The  symbol  of  this  association 
was  a  sacred  repast  partaken  of  in  common.  A  few 
thousand  citizens  might  indeed  literally  unite  around 
the  same  prytaneum,  recite  the  same  prayer,  and  par¬ 
take  of  the  same  sacred  dishes.  But  how  attempt,  with 


CHAP  XIV. 


THE  MUNICIPAL  SPIRIT. 


271 


these  usages,  to  make  a  single  state  of  entire  Greece? 
How  could  men  hold  the  public  repasts,  and  perform 
all  the  sacred  ceremonies,  in  which  every  citizen  was 
bound  to  take  a  part?  Where  would  they  locate  the 
prytaneum?  How  would  they  perform  the  annual 
lustration  of  the  citizens?  What  would  become  of 
the  inviolable  limits  which  had  from  the  beginning 
marked  out  the  territory  of  the  city,  and  which  sepa¬ 
rated  it  forever  from  the  rest  of  the  earth’s  surface? 
What  would  become  of  all  the  local  worships,  the  city 
divinities,  and  the  heroes  who  inhabited  every  canton  ? 
Athens  had  within  her  limits  the  hero  QEdipus,  the 
enemy  of  Thebes:  how  unite  Athens  and  Thebes  in 
the  same  worship  and  under  the  same  government? 

When  these  superstitions  became  weakened  (and 
this  did  not  happen  till  a  late  period,  in  common  minds), 
it  was  too  late  to  establish  a  new  form  of  state.  The 
division  had  become  consecrated  by  custom,  by  inter¬ 
est,  by  inveterate  hatreds,  and  by  the  memory  of  past 
struggles.  Men  could  no  longer  return  to  the  past. 

Every  city  held  fast  to  its  autonomy  :  this  was  the 
name  they  gave  to  an  assemblage  which  comprised 
their  worship,  their  laws,  their  government,  and  their 
entire  religious  and  political  independence. 

It  was  easier  for  a  city  to  subject  another  than  to 
annex  it.  Victory  might  make  slaves  of  all  the  inhaV 
itants  of  a  conquered  city,  but  they  could  not  be  made 
citizens  of  the  victorious  city.  To  join  two  cities  in  a 
single  state,  to  unite  the  conquered  population  with 
the  victors,  and  associate  them  under  the  same  govern¬ 
ment,  is  what  was  never  seen  among  the  ancients,  with 
one  exception,  of  which  we  shall  speak  presently.  If 
Sparta  conquered  Messenia,  it  was  not  to  make  of  the 
Spartans  and  Messeniaus  a  single  people.  The  Spar 


272 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IH 


tans  expelled  the  whole  race  of  the  vanquished,  and 
took  their  lands.  Athens  proceeded  in  the  same  man¬ 
ner  with  Salamis,  Ægina,  and  Melos. 

The  thought  of  removing  the  conquered  to  the  city 
of  the  victors  could  not  enter  the  mind  of  any  one. 
The  city  possessed  gods,  hymns,  festivals,  and  laws, 
which  were  its  precious  patrimony,  and  it  took  good 
care  not  to  share  these  with  the  vanquished.  It  had 
not  even  the  right  to  do  this.  Could  Athens  admit 
that  a  citizen  of  Ægina  might  enter  the  temple  of 
Athene  Polias?  that  he  might  offer  his  worship  to 
Theseus  ?  that  lie  might  take  part  in  the  sacred  re¬ 
pasts?  that,  as  a  prytane,  he  might  keep  up  the  public 
fire?  Religion  forbade  it.  The  conquered  population 
ot  the  isle  of  Ægina  could  not,  therefore,  form  a  single 
state  with  the  population  of  Athens.  Not  having  the 
same  gods,  theÆginetans  and  the  Athenians  could  not 
have  the  same  laws  or  the  same  magistrates. 

But  might  not  Athens,  at  any  rate,  leaving  the 
conquered  city  intact,  send  magistrates  within  its  walls 
to  govern  it?  It  was  absolutely  contrary  to  the  prin¬ 
ciples  of  the  ancients  to  place  any  man  over  a  city,  who 
was  not  a  citizen  of  it.  Indeed,  the  magistrate  was  a 
religious  chief,  and  his  principal  function  was  to  sacri¬ 
fice  in  the  name  of  the  city.  The  foreigner,  who  had 
not  the  right  to  offer  the  sacrifice,  could  not  therefore 
be  a  magistrate.  Having  no  religious  function,  he  had 
not  in  the  eyes  of  men  any  regular  authority.  Sparta 
attempted  to  place  its  harmosts  in  the  cities,  but  these 
men  were  not  magistrates;  they  did  not  act  as  judges, 
or  appear  in  the  assemblies.  Having  no  regular  rela¬ 
tion  with  the  people  of  the  cities,  they  could  not  main¬ 
tain  themselves  there  for  any  great  length  of  time. 

Every  coiqueror,  consequently,  had  only  the  alterna 


CHAP.  XV.  RELATIONS  BETWEEN  THE  CITIES. 


273 


tive  of  destroying  a  subdued  city  and  occupying  its 
territory,  or  of  leaving  it  entirely  independent.  There 
was  no  middle  course.  Either  the  city  ceased  to  exist, 
or  it  was  a  sovereign  state.  So  long  as  it  retained  its 
worship,  it  retained  its  government;  it  lost  the  one 
only  by  losing  the  other;  and  then  it  existed  no  longer. 
This  absolute  independence  of  the  ancient  city  could 
only  cease  when  the  belief  on  which  it  was  founded 
had  completely  disappeared.  After  these  ideas  had 
been  transformed  and  several  revolutions  had  passed 
over  these  antique  societies,  then  men  might  come  to 
have  an  idea  of,  and  to  establish,  a  larger  state,  gov¬ 
erned  by  other  rules.  But  for  this  it  was  necessary 
that  men  should  discover  other  principles  and  other 
social  bonds  than  those  of  the  ancient  ages. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Relations  between  the  Cities.  War.  Peace.  The  Alli¬ 
ance  of  the  Gods. 

This  religion,  which  exercised  so  powerful  an  empire 
over  the  interior  life  of  the  city,  intervened  with  the 
same  authority  in  all  the  relations  between  cities.  We 
may  see  this  by  observing  how  men  of  those  ancient 
ages  carried  on  war,  how  they  concluded  peace,  and 
how  they  formed  alliances. 

Two  cities  were  two  religious  associations  which  had 
not  the  same  gods.  When  they  were  at  war  it  was 
not  the  men  alone  who  fought  —  the  gods  also  took  part 
in  the  struggle.  Let  no  one  suppose  that  this  was 
gimply  a  poetical  fiction.  There  was  among  the  an- 

18 


274 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


cients  a  very  definite  and  a  very  vivid  belief,  by  reason 
of  which  each  army  took  its  gods  along  with  it.  Men 
believed  that  thes*  gods  took  an  active  part  in  the  bat¬ 
tle  ;  the  soldiers  defended  them  and  they  defended  the 
soldiers.  While  fighting  against  the  enemy,  each  one 
believed  he  was  fighting  against  the  gods  of  another 
city.  These  foreign  gods  he  was  permitted  to  detest, 
to  abuse,  to  strike  ;  he  might  even  make  them  prison¬ 
ers.  Thus  war  had  a  strange  aspect.  We  must  pic¬ 
ture  to  ourselves  two  armies  facing  each  other:  in  the 
midst  of  each  are  its  statues,  its  altar,  and  its  stan¬ 
dards,  which  are  sacred  emblems;  each  has  its  oracles, 
which  have  promised  it  success;  its  augurs,  and  its 
soothsayers,  who  assure  it  the  victory.  Before  the  bat¬ 
tle  each  soldier  in  the  two  armies  thinks  and  says,  like 
the  Greek  in  Euripides,  “The  gods  who  fight  for  us 
are  more  powerful  than  those  of  our  enemies.”  Each 
army  pronounces  against  the  other  an  imprecation  like 
that  which  Macrobius  has  preserved  —  “  O  gods,  spread 
fear,  terror,  and  misfortune  among  our  enemies.  Let 
these  men,  and  whoever  inhabits  their  lands  and  cities, 
be  deprived  by  you  of  the  light  of  the  sun.  May  their 
city,  and  their  lands,  and  their  heads,  and  their  persons, 
be  devoted  to  you.”  After  this  imprecation,  they  rush 
to  battle  on  both  sides,  with  that  savage  fury  which 
the  notion  that  they  have  gods  fighting  for  them  and 
that  they  are  fighting  against  strange  gods  inspires  in 
them.  There  is  no  mercy  for  the  enemy  ;  war  is  im¬ 
placable  ;  religion  presides  over  the  struggle,  and  ex¬ 
cites  the  combatants.  There  can  be  no  superior  rule 
to  moderate  the  desire  for  slaughter;  they  are  permit* 
ted  to  kill  the  prisoners  and  the  wounded. 

Even  outside  the  field  of  battle  they  have  no  idea 
of  a  duty  of  any  kind  towards  the  enemy.  There  are 


CHAP.  XV. 


WAR. 


275 

never  any  rights  for  a  foreigner,  least  of  all  in  t  me 
of  war.  No  one  was  required  to  distinguish  the  just 
from  the  unjust  in  respect  to  him.  Mucius  Scæv- 
ola  and  all  the  Romans  believed  it  was  a  glorious 
deed  to  assassinate  an  enemy.  The  consul  Marcius 
boasted  publicly  of  having  deceived  the  king  of  Mac*  ~ 
donia.  Paulus  Æmilius  sold  as  slaves  a  hundred  thoi 
sand  Epirots  who  had  voluntarily  surrendered  them 
selves  to  him. 

The  Lacedaemonian  Phebidas  seized  upon  the  cita¬ 
del  of  the  Thebans  in  time  of  peace.  Agesilaus  was 
questioned  upon  the  justice  of  this  action.  “Inquire 
only  if  it  is  useful,”  said  the  king;  “for  whenever  an 
action  is  useful  to  our  country,  it  is  right.”  This  was 
the  international  law  of  ancient  cities.  Another  king 
of  Sparta,  Cleomenes,  said  that  all  the  evil  one  could 
do  to  enemies  was  always  just  in  the  eyes  of  gods  and 
men. 

The  conqueror  could  use  his  victory  as  he  pleased. 
No  human  or  divine  law  restrained  his  vengeance  or 
his  cupidity.  The  day  on  which  the  Athenians  decreed 
that  all  the  Mitylenaeans,  without  distinction  of  age  or 
sex,  should  be  exterminated,  they  did  not  dream  of 
transcending  their  rights  ;  and  Avben,  on  the  next  day, 
they  revoked  their  decree,  and  contented  themselves 
*  with  putting  a  thousand  citizens  to  death,  and  confis¬ 
cating  all  the  lands,  they  thought  themselves  humane 
and  indulgent.  After  the  taking  of  Platæa,  the  men 
were  put  to  death,  and  the  women  sold  ;  and  yet  no 
one  accused  the  conquerors  of  having  violated  any  law. 

These  men  made  war  not  only  upon  soldiers,  but 
upon  an  entire  population,  men,  women,  children,  and 
slaves.  They  waged  it  not  only  against  human  beings, 
but  against  fields  and  crops.  They  burned  houses  and 


276 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  ITT. 


cut  down  trees;  the  harvest  of  the  enemy  was  almost 
always  devoted  to  the  infernal  gods,  and  consequently 
burned.  They  exterminated  the  cattle  ;  they  even  de¬ 
stroyed  the  seed  which  might  produce  a  crop  the  fol¬ 
lowing  year.  A  war  might  cause  the  name  and  race 
of  an  entire  people  to  disappear  at  a  single  blow,  and 
change  a  fertile  country  into  a  desert.  It  was  by 
virtue  of  this  law  of  war  that  the  Romans  extended 
a  solitude  around  their  city;  of  the  territory  where  the 
Volscians  had  twenty-three  cities,  it  made  the  Pontine 
marshes;  the  fifty-three  cities  of  Latium  have  dis¬ 
appeared  ;  in  Samnium,  the  places  where  the  Roman 
armies  had  passed  could  long  be  recognized,  less  by 
the  vestiges  of  their  camps  than  by  the  solitude  which 
reigned  in  the  neighborhood. 

When  the  conquerors  did  not  exterminate  the  van¬ 
quished,  they  had  a  right  to  suppress  their  city  —  that 
is  to  say,  to  break  up  their  religious  and  political  asso¬ 
ciation.  The  worship  then  ceased,  and  the  gods  were 
forgotten.  The  religion  of  the  city  being  destroyed, 
the  religion  of  every  family  disappeared  at  the  same 
time.  The  sacred  fires  were  extinguished.  With  the 
wrorship  fell  the  laws,  civil  rights,  the  family,  property, 
everything  that  depended  upon  religion.1  Let  us  listen 
to  the  prisoner  whose  life  is  spared  ;  he  is  made  to  pro¬ 
nounce  the  following  formula  :  “I  give  my  person,  my 
city,  my  land,  the  water  that  flows  over  it,  my  boundary 
gods,  my  temples,  my  movable  property,  everything 
which  pertains  to  the  gods,  —  these  I  give  to  the  Ro¬ 
man  people.”  2  From  this  moment  the  gods,  the  tem¬ 
ples,  the  houses,  the  lands,  and  the  people  belonged  tc 

*  Cicero,  in  Very'.,  II.  3,  6.  Siculus  Flaccus,  passim .  Thu¬ 
cydides,  III.  50  and  68. 

’  Livy,  I.  38.  Plautus,  Amphitr .,  100-105. 


JHAP.  XV. 


PEACE. 


277 


the  victors.  We  shall  relate,  farther  on,  what  the 
result  of  this  was  under  the  dominion  of  Rome. 

When  a  war  did  not  end  by  the  extermination  or 
subjection  of  one  of  the  two  parties,  a  treaty  of  peace 
might  terminate  it.  But  for  this  a  convention  was  not 
sufficient;  a  religious  act  was  necessary.  Every  treaty 
was  marked  by  the  immolation  of  a  victim.  To  sign  a 
treaty  is  a  modern  expression;  the  Latins  said,  strike  a 
kid,  icere  hœdus,  or  fœdus  ;  the  name  of  the  victim 
most  generally  employed  for  this  purpose  has  remained 
in  the  common  language  to  designate  the  entire  act.1 
The  Greeks  expressed  themselves  in  a  similar  manner; 
they  said,  offer  a  libation — onèvôeoôtu.  The  ceremony 
of  the  treaty  was  always  accomplished  by  priests, 
who  conformed  to  the  ritual.2  In  Italy  they  were 
called  feciales ,  and  spendophoroi ,  or  libation-carriers, 
in  Greece. 

These  religious  ceremonies  alone  gave  a  sacred  and 
inviolable  character  to  international  conventions.  The 
history  of  the  Caudine  Forks  is  well  known.  An  entire 
army,  through  its  consuls,  questors,  tribunes,  and  cen¬ 
turions  had  made  a  convention  with  the  Samnites  ;  but 
no  victims  had  been  offered.  The  senate,  therefore, 
believed  itself  justified  in  declaring  that  the  treaty  was 
not  valid.  In  annulling  it,  no  pontiff  or  patrician  be 
lieved  that  he  was  committing  an  act  of  bad  faith. 

It  was  the  universal  opinion  among  the  ancients  that 
a  man  owed  no  obligations  except  to  his  own  gods. 
We  may  recall  the  saying  of  a  certain  Greek,  whose 
city  adored  the  hero  Alabandos  ;  he  was  speaking  to  an 
inhabitant  of  another  city,  that  worshipped  Hercules. 

1  Festus,  Fœdum,  and  Fœdus. 

s  In  Greece  they  wore  a  crown.  Xenophon,  Hell IV.  7,  3. 


278 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


“Alabandos,”  said  he,  “is  a  god,  and  Hercules  is  not 
one.”  1  With  such  ideas  it  was  important,  in  a  treaty 
of  peace,  that  each  city  called  its  own  gods  to 
bear  witness  to  its  oaths.  “We  made  a  treaty,  and 
poured  out  the  libations,”  said  the  Platæans  to  the 
Spartans;  “we  called  to  witness,  you  the  gods  of 
your  fathers,  we  the  gods  who  occupy  our  country.”* 
Both  parties  tried,  indeed,  if  it  was  possible,  to  invoke 
divinities  that  were  common  to  both  cities.  They 
swore  by  those  gods  that  were  visible  everywhere  — the 
sun,  which  shines  upon  all,  and  the  nourishing  earth. 
But  the  gods  of  each  city,  and  its  protecting  heroes, 
touched  men  much  more,  and  it  was  necessary  to  call 
them  to  witness,  if  men  wished  to  have  oaths  really 
confirmed  by  religion.  As  the  gods  mingled  in  the 
battles  during  the  war,  they  had  to  be  included  in  the 
treaty.  It  was  stipulated,  therefore,  that  there  should 
be  an  alliance  between  the  gods  as  between  the  men  of 
the  two  cities.  To  indicate  this  alliance  of  the  gods, 
it  sometimes  happened  that  the  two  peoples  agreed 
mutually  to  take  part  in  each  other’s  sacred  festivals.3 
Sometimes  they  opened  their  temples  to  each  other, 
and  made  an  exchange  of  religious  rites.  Rome  once 
stipulated  that  the  city  god  of  Lanuvium  should  thence¬ 
forth  protect  the  Romans,  who  should  have  the  right 
to  invoke  him,  and  to  enter  his  temple.4  Afterwards 
each  of  the  contracting  parties  engaged  to  worship  the 
divinities  of  the  other.  Thus  the  Eleans,  having  con¬ 
cluded  a  treaty  with  the  .Ætolians,  thenceforth  offered 
an  annual  sacrifice  to  the  heroes  of  their  allies.5 
It  often  happened,  after  an  alliance,  that  the  divini- 

Cicero,  De  A  at.  Deor .,  III.  19.  2  Thucydides.  II. 

3  Thucydides,  V.  23.  Plutarch,  Theseus ,  25,  33. 

4  Livy,  VIII.  14  5  Pausanias>  y.  15. 


CHAP.  XV.  THE  ALLIANCE  OF  THE  GODS. 


279 


ties  of  two  cities  were  represented  by  statues  or  medals 
holding  one  another  by  the  hand.  Thus  it  is  that  there 
are  medals  on  which  are  seen  united  the  Apollo  of 
Miletus  and  the  Genius  of  Smyrna,  the  Pallas  of  the 
Sideans  and  the  Artemis  of  Perga,  the  Apollo  of  Hie- 
rapolis  and  the  Artemis  of  Ephesus.  Virgil,  speaking  of 
an  alliance  between  Thrace  and  the  Trojans,  represents 
the  Penates  of  the  two  nations  united  and  associated. 

These  strange  customs  corresponded  perfectly  with 
the  idea  which  the  ancients  had  of  the  gods.  As  every 
city  had  its  own,  it  seemed  natural  that  these  gods 
should  figure  in  battles  and  treaties.  War  or  peace 
between  two  cities  was  war  or  peace  between  two 
religions. 

International  law  among  the  ancients  was  long 
founded  upon  this  principle.  When  the  gods  were  en¬ 
emies,  there  was  war  without  mercy  and  without  law; 
as  soon  as  they  were  friends,  the  men  were  united,  and 
entertained  ideas  of  reciprocal  duties.  If  they  could 
imagine  that  the  protecting  divinities  of  two  cities  had 
some  motive  for  becoming  allies,  this  was  reason  enough 
why  the  two  cities  should  become  so.  The  first  city 
with  which  Rome  contracted  ties  of  friendship  was 
Caere,  in  Etruria,  and  Livy  gives  the  reason  for  this: 
in  the  disaster  of  the  Gallic  invasion,  the  Roman  gods 
had  found  an  asylum  in  Caere;  they  had  inhabited  that 
city,  and  had  been  adored  there  ;  a  sacred  bond  of 
friendship  was  thus  established  between  the  Roman 
gods  and  the  Etruscan  city.'  Thenceforth  religion 
would  not  permit  the  two  cities  to  be  enemies;  they 
were  allied  forever,* 

1  Livy,  V.  50.  Aulus  Gellius,  XVI.  13. 

*  It  does  not  enter  into  our  plan  to  speak  of  the  numerous 
confederations  or  amphictyonies  in  ancient  Greece  and  Italy. 


280 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IIL 


CHAPTER  XVL 
The  Roman.  The  Athenian. 

This  same  religion  which  had  founded  society,  and 
which  had  governed  it  for  a  long  time,  also  gave  the 
human  mind  its  direction,  and  man  his  character.  By 
its  dogmas  and  its  practices  it  gave  to  the  Greek  and 
the  Roman  a  certain  manner  of  thinking  and  acting, 
and  certain  habits  of  which  they  were  a  long  time  in 
divesting  themselves.  It  showed  men  gods  every- 

We  will  only  remark  here  that  they  were  as  much  religious  as 
political  associations.  There  was  not  one  of  them  that  had  not 
a  common  worship  and  a  sanctuary.  That  of  the  Boeotians  wor¬ 
shipped  Athene  Itonia,  that  of  the  Achæans  Demeter  Panachæa, 
the  god  of  the  Ionians  in  Asia  Minor  was  Poseidon  Helliconius, 
as  that  of  the  Dorian  Pentapolis  was  Apollo  Triopicus.  The 
confederation  of  the  Cyclades  offered  a  common  sacrifice  in  the 
isle  of  Delos,  the  cities  of  Argolis  at  Calauria.  The  Amphic- 
tyony  of  Thermopylae  was  an  association  of  the  same  nature.  All 
their  meetings  took  place  in  temples,  and  were  principally  for 
offering  sacrifices.  Each  of  the  confederate  cities  sent  citizens 
clothed  for  the  time  with  a  sacerdotal  character,  and  called 
theori,  to  take  part  in  these  meetings.  A  victim  was  slain  in 
honor  of  the  god  of  the  association,  and  the  flesh,  cooked  upon 
the  altar,  was  shared  among  the  representatives  of  the  cities. 
The  common  meal,  with  the  songs,  prayers,  and  sacred  plays 
that  accompanied  them,  formed  the  bond  of  the  confederation. 
The  same  usage  existed  in  Italy.  The  cities  of  Latium  had  the 
feriæ  Latinæ,  in  which  they  shared  the  flesh  of  a  victim.  It 
was  the  same  with  the  Etruscan  cities.  Besides,  in  all  these 
amphictyonies,  the  political  bond  was  always  weaker  than  the 
religious  one.  The  confederate  cities  preserved  perfect  inde¬ 
pendence.  They  might  even  make  war  against  each  other, 
provided  they  observed  a  truce  during  the  federal  festival. 


CHAP.  XVI. 


THE  ROMAN. 


281 


where,  little  gods,  gods  easily  irritated  and  malevolent. 
It  crushed  man  with  the  fear  of  always  having  gods 
against  him,  and  left  him  no  liberty  in  his  acts. 

We  must  inquire  what  place  religion  occupied  in 
the  life  of  a  Roman.  His  house  was  for  him  what  .? 
temple  is  for  us.  He  finds  there  his  worship  and  his 
gods.  His  fire  P  a  god  ;  the  walls,  the  doors,  the  thresh¬ 
old  are  gods  ;  1  the  boundary  marks  which  surround 
his  field  are  also  gods.  The  tomb  is  an  altar,  and  his 
ancestors  are  divine  beings. 

Each  one  of  his  daily  actions  is  a  rite;  his  whole 
day  belongs  to  his  religion.  Morning  and  evening  he 
invokes  his  fire,  his  Penates,  and  his  ancestors  ;  in  leav¬ 
ing  and  entering  his  house  he  addresses  a  prayer  to 
them.  Every  meal  is  a  religious  act,  which  he  shares 
with  his  domestic  divinities.  Birth,  initiation,  the 
taking  of  the  toga,  marriage,  and  the  anniversaries  of 
all  these  events,  are  the  solemn  acts  of  his  worship. 

He  leaves  his  house,  and  can  hardly  take  a  step  with¬ 
out  meeting  some  sacred  object  —  either  a  chapel,  or  a 
place  formerly  struck  by  lightning,  or  a  tomb;  some¬ 
times  he  must  step  back  and  pronounce  a  prayer;  some¬ 
times  he  must  turn  his  eyes  and  cover  his  face,  to 
avoid  the  sight  of  some  ill-boding  object. 

Every  day  he  sacrifices  in  his  house,  every  month 
in  his  cury,  several  months  a  year  with  his  gens  or  his 
tribe.  Above  all  these  gods,  he  must  offer  worship  to 
those  of  the  city.  There  are  in  Rome  more  gods  than 
citizens. 

He  offers  sacrifices  to  thank  the  gods  ;  he  offers  them, 
and  by  far  the  greater  number,  to  appease  their  wrath. 

1  St.  Augustine,  City  of  God ,  VI.  7.  Tertullian,  Ad.  Nat., 

II.  15. 


282 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  Ill. 


One  day  he  figures  in  a  procession,  dancing  after  a 
certain  ancient  rhythm,  to  the  sound  of  the  sacred  flute. 
Another  day  he  conducts  chariots,  in  which  lie  statues 
of  the  divinities.  Another  time  it  is  a  lectüternium. 
a  table  is  set  in  a  street,  and  loaded  with  provisions 
upon  beds  lie  statues  of  the  gods,  and  every  Roman 
passes  bowing,  with  a  crown  upon  his  head,  and  a 
branch  of  laurel  in  his  hand.1 

There  is  a  festival  for  seed-time,  one  for  the  harvest, 
and  one  for  the  pruning  of  the  vines.  Before  corn  has 
reached  the  ear,  the  Roman  has  offered  more  than  ten 
sacrifices,  and  invoked  some  ten  divinities  for  the  suc¬ 
cess  of  his  harvest.  He  has,  above  all,  a  multitude  of 
festivals  for  the  dead,  because  he  is  afraid  of  them. 

He  never  leaves  his  own  house  without  looking  to 
see  if  any  bird  of  bad  augury  appears.  There  are 
words  which  he  dares  not  pronounce  for  his  life.  If 
he  experiences  some  desire,  he  inscribes  his  wish  upon 
a  tablet  which  he  places  at  the  feet  of  the  statue  of  a 
divinity. 

At  every  moment  he  consults  the  gods,  and  wishes 
to  know  their  will.  He  finds  all  his  resolutions  in  the 
entrails  of  victims,  in  the  flight  of  birds,  in  the  warning 
of  the  lightning.  The  announcement  of  a  shower  of 
blood,  or  of  an  ox  that  has  spoken,  troubles  him  and 
makes  him  tremble.  He  will  be  tranquil  only  after  an 
expiatory  ceremony  shall  restore  him  to  peace  with 
the  gods. 

He  steps  out  of  his  house  always  with  the  right  foot 
first.  He  has  his  hair  cut  only  during  the  full  moon. 
He  carries  amulets  upon  his  person.  He  covers  the 
walls  of  his  house  with  magic  inscriptions  against  fire. 


1  Livy,  XXXIV.  55  ;  XL.  37. 


CHAP.  XVI. 


THE  liOMAN. 


283 


He  knows  of  formulas  for  avoiding  sickness,  and  of 
others  for  curing  it  ;  but  he  must  repeat  them  twenty- 
seven  times,  and  spit  in  a  certain  fashion  at  each 
repetition.1 

He  does  not  deliberate  in  the  senate  if  the  victims 
have  not  given  favorable  signs.  He  leaves  the  as¬ 
sembly  of  the  people  if  he  hears  the  cry  of  a  mouse. 
He  renounces  the  best  laid  plans  if  he  perceives  a  bad 
presage,  or  if  an  ill-omened  word  has  struck  his  ear. 
He  is  brave  in  battle,  but  on  condition  that  the  aus¬ 
pices  assure  him  the  victory. 

This  Roman  whom  we  present  here  is  not  the  man 
of  the  people,  the  feeble-minded  man  whom  misery 
and  ignorance  have  made  superstitious.  We  are  speak¬ 
ing  of  the  patrician,  the  noble,  powerful,  and  rich  man. 
This  patrician  is,  by  turns,  warrior,  magistrate,  consul, 
farmer,  merchant;  but  everywhere  and  always  he  is 
a  priest,  and  his  thoughts  are  fixed  upon  the  gods. 
Patriotism,  love  of  glory,  and  love  of  gold,  whatever 
power  these  may  have  over  his  soul,  the  fear  of  the 
gods  still  governs  everything.  Horace  has  written  the 
most  striking  truth  concerning  the  Romans  :  — 

“  Dis  te  minorera  quod  geris,  imperas.” 

Men  have  sometimes  called  this  a  political  religion  ; 
but  can  we  suppose  that  a  senate  of  three  hundred  mem¬ 
bers,  a  body  of  three  thousand  patricians,  should  have 
agreed  so  unanimously  to  deceive  an  ignorant  people? 
and  that,  for  ages,  during  so  many  rivalries,  struggles, 
and  personal  hatreds,  not  a  single  voice  was  raised  to 
say,  This  is  a  falsehood  ?  If  a  patrician  had  betrayed 

1  Cato,  De  Re  Rust.,  1G0.  Varro,  De  Re  Rust.,  I.  2;  I.  37. 
Pliny,  N.  H VIII.  82;  XVII.  28;  XXVII.  12;  XXVIII.  2 
Juvenal,  X.  55.  Aulus  Gellius,  IV.  5. 


284 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


the  secrets  of  his  sect,  —  if,  addressing  himself  to  the 
plebeians,  who  impatiently  supported  the  yoke  of  this 
religion,  he  had  disembarrassed  and  freed  them  from 
these  auspices  and  priesthoods,  —  this  man  would  imme¬ 
diately  have  obtained  so  much  credit  that  he  might 
have  become  the  master  of  the  state.  Does  any  one 
suppose  that  if  these  patricians  had  not  believed  in  the 
religion  which  they  practised,  such  a  temptation  would 
not  have  been  strong  enough  to  determine  at  least  one 
among  them  to  reveal  the  secret?  We  greatly  deceive 
ourselves  on  the  nature  of  man  if  we  suppose  a  reli¬ 
gion  can  be  established  by  convention  and  supported 
by  imposture.  Let  any  one  count  in  Livy  how  many 
times  tins  religion  embarrassed  the  patricians  them 
selves,  how  many  times  it  stood  in  the  way  of  the  sen¬ 
ate  and  impeded  its  action,  and  then  decide  if  this 
religion  was  invented  for  the  convenience  of  statesmen. 
It  was  very  late — not  till  the  time  of  the  Scipios  — 
that  they  began  to  believe  that  religion  was  useful  to 
the  government  ;  but  then  religion  was  already  dead 
in  their  minds. 

Let  us  take  a  Roman  of  the  first  days  :  we  will  choose 
one  of  the  greatest  commanders,  Camillus,  who  was  five 
times  dictator,  and  who  was  victorious  in  more  than 
ten  battles.  To  be  just,  we  must  consider  him  quite 
as  much  a  priest  as  a  warrior.  He  belonged  to  the 
Furian  gens;  his  surname  is  a  word  which  designates 
a  priestly  function.  When  a  child  lie  was  required  to 
wear  the  which  indicated  his  caste,  and  the 

bulla ,  which  kept  bad  fortune  from  him.  He  grew  up, 
taking  a  daily  part  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  worship; 
he  passed  his  youth  in  studying  religious  rites.  A  war 
Droke  out*  and  the  priest  became  a  soldier  ;  he  was 
^een,  when  wounded  in  the  thigh,  in  a  cavalry  combat, 


s 


CHAP.  XVI. 


THE  ROMAN. 


285 


to  draw  the  iron  from  the  wound  and  continue  to  fight. 
After  several  campaigns  he  was  raised  to  magistracies; 
as  consular  tribune  he  offered  the  public  sacrifices,  acted 
as  judge,  and  commanded  the  army.  A  day  comes 
when  men  think  of  him  for  the  dictatorship.  On  that 
day,  the  magistrate  in  office,  after  having  watched 
during  a  clear  night,  consults  the  gods;  his  thoughts 
are  fixed  upon  Camillus,  whose  name  he  pronounces  in 
a  low  voice,  and  his  eyes  are  fixed  upon  the  heavens, 
where  he  seeks  the  presages.  The  gods  send  only  good 
ones,  for  Camillus  is  agreeable  to  them,  and  he  is  named 
dictator. 

Now,  as  chief  of  the  army,  he  leaves  the  city,  not 
without  having  consulted  the  auspices  and  slain  many 
victims.  He  has  under  his  orders  many  officers  and 
almost  as  many  priests,  a  pontiff,  augurs,  aruspices, 
keepers  of  the  sacred  chickens,  assistants  at  sacrifices, 
and  a  bearer  of  the  sacred  fire.  His  work  is  to  finish 
the  war  against  Veii,  which  for  nine  years  has  been 
besieged  without  success.  Yeii  is  an  Etruscan  city  — 
that  is  to  say,  almost  a  sacred  city  ;  it  is  again&v,  piety, 
more  than  courage,  that  the  Romans  have  to  contend. 
If  the  Romans  have  been  unsuccessful  for  nine  years, 
it  is  because  the  Etruscans  have  a  better  knowledge  of 
the  rites  that  are  agreeable  to  the  gods,  and  the  magic 
formulas  that  gain  their  favor.  Rome,  on  her  side,  has 
opened  the  Sibylline  books,  and  has  sought  the  will  of 
the  gods  there.  It  appears  that  the  Latin  festival 
has  been  vitiated  by  some  neglect  of  form,  and  the 
sacrifice  is  renewed.  Still  the  Etruscans  retain  their 
superiority;  only  one  resource  is  left  —  to  seize  an 
Etruscan  priest  and  learn  the  secret  of  the  gods  from 
him.  A  Veientine  priest  is  taken  and  brought  to 
the  senate.  “To  insure  the  success  of  Rome,”  he  says, 


286 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III 


“the  level  of  the  Albnn  Lake  must  be  lowered,  taking 
good  care  that  the  water  does  not  run  into  the  sea.” 
The  Romans  obey.  They  dig  many  canals  and  ditches, 
and  the  water  of  the  lake  is  lost  in  the  plain. 

At  this  moment  Camillus  is  elected  dictator.  He 
repairs  to  the  army  at  Yeii.  He  is  sure  of  success; 
for  all  the  oracles  have  been  revealed,  all  the  commands 
of  the  gods  have  been  fulfilled.  Moreover,  before  leav¬ 
ing  Rome,  he  has  promised  the  protecting  gods  festi¬ 
vals  and  sacrifices.  In  order  to  insure  success  he  does 
not  neglect  human  means  ;  he  increases  the  army,  im¬ 
proves  its  discipline,  and  constructs  a  subterranean 
gallery,  to  penetrate  into  the  citadel.  The  day  for  the 
attack  arrives;  Camillus  leaves  his  tent;  he  takes  the 
auspices  and  sacrifices  victims.  The  pontiffs  and  au¬ 
gurs  surround  him  ;  clothed  in  the  paludamentum ,  he 
invokes  the  gods  :  “  Under  thy  conduct,  O  Apollo,  and 
by  thy  will  which  inspires  me,  I  march  to  take  and  de¬ 
stroy  the  city  of  Veii  :  to  thee  I  promise  and  devote  a 
tenth  part  of  the  spoils.”  But  it  is  not  enough  to  have 
gods  on  his  side  ;  the  enemy  also  has  a  powerful  divin¬ 
ity  that  protects  him.  Camillus  invokes  this  divinity 
in  these  words  :  “Queen  Juno,  who  at  present  inhabit- 
est  Veii,  I  pray  thee  come  with  us  conquerors;  follow 
us  into  our  city;  let  our  city  become  thine.”  Then, 
the  sacrifices  being  finished,  the  prayers  pronounced, 
the  formulas  recited,  when  the  Romans  are  sure  that 
the  gods  are  for  them,  and  no  god  any  longer  defends 
the  enemy,  the  assault  is  made,  and  the  city  is  taken. 

Such  was  Camillus.  A  Roman  general  was  a  man  who 
understood  admirably  how  to  fight,  who  knew,  above 
all,  how  to  command  obedience,  but  who  believed  firm¬ 
ly  in  the  augurs,  who  performed  religious  acts  every 
day,  and  who  was  convinced  that  what  was  of  most 


CHIP.  XVI. 


THE  ATHENIAN. 


287 


importance  was  not  conrngo,  or  even  discipline,  but  the 
enunciation  of  certain  formulas  exactly  pronounced, 
according  to  the  rites.  These  formulas,  addressed  to 
the  gods,  determined  them  and  constrained  them 
almost  always  to  give  him  the  victory.  For  such  a 
general  the  supreme  recompense  was  for  the  senate  to 
permit  him  to  offer  the  triumphal  sacrifice.  Then  he 
ascends  the  sacred  chariot  drawn  by  four  white  horses; 
he  wears  the  sacred  robe  with  which  the  sods  are 

O 

clothed  on  festal  days;  his  head  is  crowned,  his  right 
hand  holds  a  laurel  branch,  his  left  the  ivory  scep¬ 
tre;  these  are  exactly  the  attributes  and  the  costume 
of  Jupiter’s  statue.1  With  this  almost  divine  majesty 
he  shows  himself  to  the  citizens,  and  goes  to  render 
homage  to  the  true  majesty  of  the  greatest  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  gods.  He  climbs  the  slope  of  the  Capitol,  arrives 
before  the  temple  of  Jupiter,  and  immolates  victims. 

The  fear  of  the  gods  was  not  a  sentiment  peculiar 
to  the  Roman  ;  it  also  reigned  in  the  heart  of  the 
Greek.  These  peoples,  originally  established  by  reli¬ 
gion,  and  elevated  by  it,  long  preserved  the  marks  of 
their  first  education.  We  know  the  scruples  of  the 
Spartan,  who  never  commenced  an  expedition  before 
the  full  moon,  who  was  continually  sacrificing  victims 
to  know  whether  he  ought  to  fight,  and  who  renounced 
the  best  planned  and  most  necessary  enterprises  be¬ 
cause  a  bad  presage  frightened  him.  The  Athenian 
was  not  less  scrupulous.  An  Athenian  army  never  set 
out  on  a  campaign  before  the  seventh  day  of  the  month, 
and  when  a  fleet  set  sail  on  an  expedition,  great  care 
was  taken  to  regild  the  statue  of  Pallas. 

1  Livy,  X.  7  ;  XXX.  15.  Dionysius,  V.  8.  Appian,  Punic 
Wars,  59.  Juvenal,  X.  43.  Pliny,  XXXIII.  7. 


288 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  IIL 


Xenophon  declares  that  the  Athenians  had  more 
religious  festivals  than  any  other  Greek  people.1  “How 
many  victims  offered  to  the  gods!”  says  Aristophanes, 

“  how  many  temples  !  how  mnny  statues  !  how  many 
sacred  processions!  At  every  moment  of  the  year  we 
see  religious  feasts  and  crowned  victims.  The  city 
of  Athens  and  its  territory  are  covered  with  temples 
and  chapels.  Some  are  for  the  city  worship,  others  for 
the  tribes  and  demes,  and  still  others  for  family  wor¬ 
ship.  Every  house  is  itself  a  temple,  and  in  every  field 
there  is  a  sacred  tomb. 

The  Athenian  whom  we  picture  to  ourselves  as  so 
inconstant,  so  capricious,  such  a  free-thinker,  has,  on 
the  contrary,  a  singular  respect  for  ancient  traditions 
and  ancient  rites.  His  principal  religion  —  that  which 
secures  his  most  fervent  devotion  — is  the  worship  of 
ancestors  and  heroes.  He  worships  the  dead  and  fears 
them.  One  of  his  laws  obliges  him  to  offer  them  yearly 
the  first  fruits  of  his  harvest;  another  forbids  him  to 
pronounce  a  single  word  that  can  call  down  theii  an¬ 
ger.  Whatever  relates  to  antiquity  is  sacred  to  the 
Athenian.  He  has  old  collections,  in  which  are  record¬ 
ed  his  rites,  from  which  he  never  departs.  If  a  priest 
introduces  the  slightest  innovation  into  the  worship, 
he  is  punished  with  death.  The  strangest  rites  are 
observed  from  age  to  age.  One  day  in  the  year  the 
Athenians  offer  a  sacrifice  in  honor  ol  Ariadne;  and 
because  it  was  said  that  the  beloved  of  Theseus  died 
in  childbirth,  they  are  compelled  to  imitate  the  cries 
and  movements  of  a  woman  in  travail.  They  cele¬ 
brate  another  festival,  called  Oschophoria,  which  is  a 

1  Xenophon,  Gov.  of  the  Athenians ,  III.  2. 

*  Aristophanes,  Cloud*. 


CHAP.  XVI. 


THE  ATHENIAN. 


289 


sort  of  pantomime,  representing  the  return  of  Theseus 
to  Attica.  They  crown  the  wand  of  a  herald  because 
Theseus’s  herald  crowned  his  staff.  They  utter  a  cer¬ 
tain  cry  which  they  suppose  the  herald  uttered,  and  a 
procession  is  formed,  and  each  wears  the  costume  that 
was  in  fashion  in  Theseus’s  time.  On  another  day  the 
Athenians  did  not  fail  to  boil  vegetables  in  a  pot  of  a 
certain  kind.  This  was  a  rite  the  origin  of  which 
was  lost  in  dim  antiquity,  and  of  which  no  one  knew 
the  significance,  but  which  was  piously  renewed  each 
year.1 

The  Athenian,  like  the  Roman,  had  unlucky  days: 
on  these  days  no  marriage  took  place,  no  enterprise  was 
begun,  no  assembly  was  held,  and  justice  was  not  admin¬ 
istered.  The  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  day  of  every 
month  was  employed  in  purifications.  The  day  of  the 
Plynteria  — a  day  unlucky  above  all  —  they  veiled  the 
statue  of  the  great  Athene  Polias.  On  the  contrary,  on 
the  day  of  the  Panathenæa,  the  veil  of  the  goddess  was 
carried  in  grand  procession,  and  all  the  citizens,  with¬ 
out  distinction  of  age  or  rank,  made  up  the  cortege. 
The  Athenian  offered  sacrifices  for  the  harvests,  for 
the  return  of  rain,  and  for  the  return  of  fair  weather; 
he  offered  them  to  cure  sickness,  and  to  drive  away 
famine  or  pestilence.2 

Athens  has  its  collection  of  ancient  oracles,  as  Rome 
has  her  Sibylline  books,  and  supports  in  the  Pryta- 
neurn  men  who  foretell  the  future.  In  her  streets  we 
meet  at  every  step  soothsayers,  priests,  and  interpreters 
of  dreams.  The  Athenian  believes  in  portents  ;  sneez- 

1  Plutarch,  Theseus ,  20,  22,  23. 

*  Plato,  Laws ,  p.  800.  Philochorus,  Lragm.  Euripides 
Suppl,  j  80. 


19 


290 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  III. 


ing,  or  a  ringing  in  the  ears,  arrests  him  in  an  entei- 
prise.  He  never  goes  on  shipboard  without  tnking 
the  auspices.  Before  marrying  he  does  not  fail  to 
consult  the  flight  of  birds.  The  assembly  of  the  people 
disperses  as  soon  as  any  one  declares  that  theie  has 
appeared  in  the  heavens  an  ill-boding  sign.  If  a  sacri¬ 
fice  has  been  disturbed  by  the  announcement  of  bad 
news,  it  must  be  recommenced.1 

The  Athenian  hardly  commences  r.  sentence  without 
first  invoking  good  fortune.  He  puts  the  same  woids 
at  the  head  of  all  his  decrees.  On  the  speaker’s  stand 
the  orator  prefers  to  commence  with  an  invocation  to 
the  gods  and  heroes  who  inhabit  the  countiy.  The 
people  are  led  by  oracles.  The  orators,  to  give  their 
advice  more  force,  repeat,  at  every  moment,  “The 
goddess  ordains  thus.”  2 

Nicias  belongs  to  a  great  and  rich  family.  While 
still  young  he  conducts  to  the  sanctuary  of  Delos  <i 
theoria  —  that  is  to  say,  victims,  and  a  chorus  to  sing 
the  praises  of  the  god  during  the  sacrifice.  Returning 
to  Athens,  he  offers  a  part  of  his  fortune  in  homage 
to  the  gods,  dedicating  a  statue  to  Athene  and  a  chapel 
to  Dionysius.  By  turns  he  is  liestiatov ,  and  pays  the 
expense  of  the  sacred  repast  of  his  tribe  j  and  chore- 
gus ,  when  he  supports  a  chorus  for  the  religious  festi¬ 
vals.  No  day  passes  that  he  does  not  offer  a  sacrifice 
to  some  god.  He  has  a  soothsayer  attached  to  his 
house,  who  never  leaves  it,  and  whom  he  consults  on 
public  affairs,  as  well  as  on  his  own.  Having  been  ap¬ 
pointed  a  general,  he  commands  an  expedition  against 

1  Aristophanes,  Peace,  1084;  Birds ,  596,  718.  Schol.  ad 
Aves,  721.  Thucyd.,  II.  8. 

*  Lycurgus,  I.  1.  Aristophanes,  Knights,  903,  999,  1171,  1179 


CHAP.  XVI.  THE  ROMAN.  THE  ATHENIAN. 


291 


Corinth;  while  he  is  returning  victorious  to  Athens,  he 
perceives  that  two  of  his  dead  soldiers  have  been  left, 
without  burial,  upon  the  enemy’s  territory.  He  is 
seized  with  a  religious  scruple  ;  he  stops  his  fleet,  and 
sends  a  herald  to  demand  of  the  Corinthians  permission 
to  bury  the  two  bodies.  Some  time  after,  the  Athenian 
people  are  deliberating  upon  the  Sicilian  expedition. 
Nicias  ascends  the  speaker’s  stand,  and  declares  that  his 
priests  and  soothsayers  announce  prestiges  which  are 
opposed  to  the  expedition.  Alcibiades,  it  is  true,  has 
other  diviners  who  interpret  the  oracles  in  a  contrary 
sense.  The  people  are  undecided.  Men  come  in  who 
have  just  arrived  from  Egypt;  they  have  consulted  the 
god  Ammon,  who  is  beginning  to  be  quite  the  fashion, 
and  they  report  this  oracle  from  him.  The  Athenians 
will  capture  all  the  Syracusans.  The  people  immedi¬ 
ately  decide  for  war.1 

Nicias,  much  against  his  will,  commands  the  expedi¬ 
tion.  Before  setting  out,  he  oflers  a  sacrifice,  according 
to  custom.  He  takes  with  him,  like  other  generals,  a 
troop  of  diviners,  sacrificers,  aruspices,  and  heralds. 
The  fleet  carries  its  sacred  fire;  every  vessel  has  an 
emblem  representing  some  god. 

But  Nicias  has  little  hope.  Is  not  misfortune  an¬ 
nounced  by  prodigies  enough  ?  Crows  have  injured  a 
statue  of  Pallas  ;  a  man  has  mutilated  himself  upon  an 
altar;  and  the  departure  takes  place  during  the  unlucky 
days  of  the  Plynteria.  Nicias  knows  only  too  well  that 
this  war  will  be  fatal  to  him  and  his  country.  During 
the  whole  course  of  his  campaign  he  always  appears 
timorous  and  circumspect  :  he  hardly  dares  to  give  the 
signal  for  a  battle,  he  whom  they  know  to  be  so  brave 


1  Plutarch,  Nicias.  Thucydides,  VI. 


292 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK.  in. 


a  soldier  and  so  skilful  a  general.  The  Athenians 
cannot  take  Syracuse,  and,  after  cruel  losses,  they  are 
forced  to  decide  upon  returning  home.  Nicias  pre¬ 
pares  his  fleet  for  the  return  ;  the  sea  is  still  free.  But 
an  eclipse  of  the  moon  happens.  He  consults  his  divin¬ 
er  ;  the  diviner  answers  that  the  presage  is  unfavor¬ 
able,  and  that  they  must  wait  three  times  nine  days. 
Nicias  obeys  ;  he  passes  all  this  time  inactive,  offering 
many  sacrifices  to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  gods. 
During  this  delay  the  enemy  close  up  the  port  and 
destroy  his  fleet.  Nothing  is  left  for  him  but  to  retreat 
by  land,  and  this  is  impossible.  Neither  he  nor  any 
of  his  soldiers  escapes  the  Syracusans. 

What  did  the  Athenians  say  at  the  news  of  this 
disaster?  They  knew  the  personal  courage  of  Nicias, 
and  his  admirable  constancy.  Nor  did  they  dream  of 
blaming  him  for  having  followed  the  dictates  of  religion. 
They  found  but  one  thing  to  reproach  him  for;  this  was 
for  having  taken  with  him  an  ignorant  diviner.  For 
this  man  had  been  mistaken  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
eclipse  of  the  moon;  he  ought  to  have  known  that,  for 
an  army  wishing  to  retreat,  a  moon  that  conceals  its 
light  is  a  favorable  presage.1 

1  Plutarch,  Nicias,  28. 


s 


CHAP  XVII.  OMNIPOTENCE  OF  THE  STATE. 


298 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

The  Omnipotence  of  the  State-  The  Ancients  knew  nothing 

of  Individual  Liberty. 

The  city  had  been  founded  upon  a  religion,  and 
constituted  like  a  church.  Hence  its  strength  ;  hence, 
also,  its  omnipotence  and  the  absolute  empire  which  it 
exercised  over  its  members.  In  a  society  established 
on  such  principles,  individual  liberty  could  not  exist. 
The  citizen  was  subordinate  in  everything,  and  without 
any  reserve,  to  the  city  ;  lie  belonged  to  it  body  and  soul. 
The  religion  which  had  produced  the  state,  and  the 
state  which  supported  the  religion,  sustained  each  other, 
and  made  but  one  ;  these  two  powers,  associated  and 
confounded,  formed  a  power  almost  superhuman,  to 
which  the  soul  and  the  body  were  equally  enslaved. 

There  was  nothing  independent  in  man  ;  his  body 
belonged  to  the  state,  and  was  devoted  to  its  defence. 
At  Rome  military  service  was  due  till  a  man  was  fifty 
years  old,  at  Athens  till  he  was  sixty,  at  Sparta  always. 
His  fortune  was  always  at  the  disposal  of  the  state.  If 
the  city  had  need  of  money,  it  could  order  the  women 
to  deliver  up  their  jewels,  the  creditors  to  give  up  their 
claims,  and  the  owners  of  olive  trees  to  turn  over  gra¬ 
tuitously  the  oil  which  they  had  made.1 

Private  life  did  not  escape  this  omnipotence  of  the 
state.  The  Athenian  law,  in  the  name  of  religion,  for¬ 
bade  men  to  remain  single.2  Sparta  punished  not  only 
those  who  remained  single,  but  those  who  married 

1  Aristotle,  Fconom.,  II. 

2  Pollux,  VIII.  40.  Plutarch,  Ly  scinder,  30. 


294 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  m. 


late.  At  Athens  the  state  could  prescribe  labor,  and 
at  Sparta  idleness.  It  exercised  its  tyranny  even  in 
the  smallest  things  ;  at  Locri  the  laws  forbade  men  to 
drink  pure  wine  ;  at  Rome,  Miletus,  and  Marseilles  wine 
was  forbidden  to  women.1  It  was  a  common  thing  for 
the  kind  of  dress  to  be  invariably  fixed  by  each  city; 
the  legislation  of  Sparta  regulated  the  head-dress  of 
women,  and  that  of  Athens  forbade  them  to  take  with 
them  on  a  journey  more  than  three  dresses.2  At 
Rhodes  and  Byzantium  the  law  forbade  men  to  shave 
the  beard.3 

The  state  was  under  no  obligation  to  suffer  any  of 
its  citizens  to  be  deformed.  It  therefore  commanded 
a  father  to  whom  such  a  son  was  born,  to  have  him  put 
to  death.  This  law  is  found  in  the  ancient  codes  of 
Sparta  and  of  Rome.  We  do  not  know  that  it  existed 
at  Athens  ;  we  know  only  that  Aristotle  and  Plato  in¬ 
corporated  it  into  their  ideal  codes. 

There  is,  in  the  history  of  Sparta,  one  trait  which 
Plutarch  and  Rousseau  greatly  admired.  Sparta  had 
just  suffered  a  defeat  at  Leuctra,  and  many  of  its  citi¬ 
zens  had  perished.  On  the  receijff  of  this  news,  the 
relatives  of  the  dead  had  to  show  themselves  in  public 
with  gay  countenances.  The  mother  who  learned  that 
her  son  had  escaped,  and  that  she  should  see  him  again, 
appeared  afflicted  and  wept.  Another,  who  knew  that 

1  Athenæus,  X.  33.  Ælian,  V.  ZT.,  II.  37. 

2  Fragm.  IHst.  Grcec.  Didot,  t.  II.  p.  129,  211.  Plutarch, 
Solon ,  21. 

3  Athenæus,  XIII.  Plutarch,  Cleomenes,  9. 

“  The  Romans  thought  that  no  marriage,  or  rearing  of  chil¬ 
dren,  nay,  no  feast  or  drinking  bout,  ought  to  be  permitted 
according  to  every  one’s  appetite  or  fancy,  without  being  ex¬ 
amined  and  inquired  into.”  Plutarch,  Cato  the  Elder ,  23. 


CHAP.  xvn. 


EDUCATION. 


295 


she  should  never  again  see  her  son,  appeared  joyous, 
and  went  round  to  the  temple  to  thank  the  gods. 
What,  then,  was  the  power  of  the  state  that  could  thus 
order  the  reversal  of  the  natural  sentiments,  and  be 
obeyed  ? 

The  state  allowed  no  man  to  be  indifferent  to  its 
interests  ;  the  philosopher  or  the  studious  man  had  no 
right  to  live  apart.  He  was  obliged  to  vote  in  the 
assembly,  and  be  magistrate  in  his  turn.  At  a  time 
when  discords  were  frequent,  the  Athenian  law  per¬ 
mitted  no  one  to  remain  neutral  ;  he  must  take  sides 
with  one  or  the  other  party.  Against  one  who  at¬ 
tempted  to  remain  indifferent,  and  not  side  with  either 
faction,  and  to  appear  calm,  the  law  pronounced  the 
punishment  of  exile  with  confiscation  of  property. 

Education  was  far  from  being  free  among  the  Greeks. 
On  the  contrary,  there  was  nothing  over  which  the 
state  had  greater  control.  At  Sparta  the  father  could 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  education  of  his  son.  The 
law  appears  to  have  been  less  rigorous  at  Athens;  still 
the  state  managed  to  have  education  in  the  hands  of 
masters  of  its  own  choosing.  Aristophanes,  in  an  elo¬ 
quent  passage,  shows  the  Athenian  children  on  their 
way  to  school  ;  in  order,  distributed  according  to  their 
district,  they  march  in  serried  ranks,  through  rain, 
snow,  or  scorching  heat.  These  children  seem  already 
to  understand  that  they  are  performing  a  public  duty.1 
The  state  wished  alone  to  control  education,  and  Plato 
gives  the  motive  for  this:2  “Parents  ought  not  to  be 
free  to  send  or  not  to  send  their  children  to  the  masters 
whom  the  city  has  chosen  ;  for  the  children  belong  less 
to  their  parents  than  to  the  city.” 


Aristophanes,  Clouds ,  9G0-965. 


2  Plato,  Laws,  VII. 


296 


FHE  CITY. 


BOOK  in. 


The  state  considered  the  mind  and  body  of  every 
citizen  as  belonging  to  it;  and  wished,  therefore,  to 
fashion  this  body  and  mind  in  a  manner  that  would 
enable  it  to  draw  the  greatest  advantage  from  them. 
Children  were  taught  gymnastics,  because  the  body  of 
a  man  was  an  arm  for  the  city,  and  it  was  best  that  this 
arm  should  be  as  strong  and  as  skilful  as  possible. 
They  were  also  taught  religious  songs  and  hymns,  and 
the  sacred  dances,  because  this  knowledge  was  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  correct  performance  of  the  sacrifices  and 
festivals  of  the  city.1 

It  was  admitted  that  the  state  had  a  right  to  prevent 
free  instruction  by  the  side  of  its  own.  One  day  Athens 
made  a  law  forbidding  the  instruction  of  young  people 
without  authority  from  the  magistrates,  and  another, 
which  specially  forbade  the  teaching  of  philosophy.2 

A  man  had  no  chance  to  choose  his  belief.  He  must 
believe  and  submit  to  the  religion  of  the  city.  He 
could  hate  and  despise  the  gods  of  the  neighboring 
3ity.  As  to  the  divinities  of  a  general  and  universal 
character,  like  Jupiter,  or  Cybele,  or  Juno,  he  was  free 
to  believe  or  not  to  believe  in  them  ;  but  it  would  not 
do  to  entertain  doubts  about  Athene  Polias,  or  Erech- 
theus,  or  Cecrops.  That  would  have  been  grave  im¬ 
piety,  which  would  have  endangered  religion  and  the 
state  at  the  same  time,  and  which  the  state  would  have 
severely  punished.  Socrates  was  put  to  death  for  this 
crime.  Liberty  of  thought  in  regard  to  the  state  re¬ 
ligion  was  absolutely  unknown  among  the  ancients. 

1  Aristophanes,  Clouds ,  966-9G8. 

2  Xenophon,  Memor .,  I.  2.  Diogenes  Laertius,  Theophr. 
These  two  laws  did  not  continue  a  long  time;  but  they  do  not 
the  less  prove  the  omnipotence  that  was  conceded  to  the  state  in 
matters  of  instruction. 


CHAP.  XVII. 


INDIVIDUAL  LIBERTY. 


297 


Men  had  to  conform  to  all  the  rules  of  worship,  figure 
in  all  the  processions,  and  take  part  in  the  sacred 
repasts.  Athenian  legislation  punished  those  by  a 
fine  who  failed  religiously  to  celebrate  a  national 
festival.1 

The  ancients,  therefore,  knew  neither  liberty  in  pri¬ 
vate  life,  liberty  in  education,  nor  religious  liberty. 
The  human  person  counted  for  very  little  against  that 
holy  and  almost  divine  authority  which  was  called 
country  or  the  state.  The  state  had  not  only,  as  we 
have  in  our  modern  societies,  a  right  to  administer  jus¬ 
tice  to  the  citizens  ;  it  could  strike  when  one  was  not 
guilty,  and  simply  for  its  own  interest.  Aristides  as¬ 
suredly  had  committed  no  crime,  and  was  not  even 
suspected  ;  but  the  city  had  the  right  to  drive  him  from 
its  territory,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  had  acquired 
by  his  virtues  too  much  influence,  and  might  become 
dangerous,  if  he  desired  to  be.  This  was  called  ostra¬ 
cism  /  this  institution  was  not  peculiar  to  Athens  ;  it 
was  found  at  Argos,  at  Megara,  at  Syracuse,  and  we 
may  believe  that  it  existed  in  all  the  Greek  cities.2 

Now,  ostracism  was  not  a  chastisement;  it  was  a 
precaution  which  the  city  took  against  a  citizen  whom 
it  suspected  of  having  the  power  to  injure  it  at  any 
time.  At  Athens  a  man  could  be  put  on  trial  and  con¬ 
demned  for  incivism  — that  is  to  say,  for  the  want  of 
affection  towards  the  state.  A  man’s  life  was  guaran¬ 
teed  by  nothing  so  soon  as  the  interest  of  the  state  was 
at  stake.  Rome  made  a  law  by  which  it  was  permitted 
to  kill  any  man  who  might  have  the  intention  of  be- 

1  Pollux,  VIII.  46.  Ulpian,  Schol.  in  Demosthenes  ;  in  Mei • 
diam. 

2  Aristotle,  Pol.,  VIII.  2,  5.  Scholiast  on  Aristopli.,  Knights- 

851. 


298 


THE  CITY. 


BOOK  ILL 


coming  king.1  The  dangerous  maxim  that  the  safety 
of  the  state  is  the  supreme  law,  was  the  work  of  an¬ 
tiquity.*  It  was  then  thought  that  law,  justice,  morals, 
everything  should  give  way  before  the  interests  of  the 
country. 

It  is  a  singular  error,  therefore,  among  all  human 
errors,  to  believe  that  in  the  ancient  cities  men  enjoyed 
liberty.  They  had  not  even  the  idea  of  it.  They  did 
not  believe  that  there  could  exist  any  right  as  against 
the  city  and  its  gods.  We  shall  see,  farther  on,  that 
the  government  changed  form  several  times,  while  the 
nature  of  the  state  remained  nearly  the  same,  and  its 
omnipotence  was  little  diminished.  The  government 
was  called  by  turns  monarchy,  aristocracy,  democracy; 
but  none  of  these  revolutions  gave  man  true  liberty, 
individual  liberty.  To  have  political  rights,  to  vote, 
to  name  magistrates,  to  have  the  privilege  of  being 
archon,  —  this  was  called  liberty;  but  man  was  not  the 
less  enslaved  to  the  state.  The  ancients,  especially  the 
Greeks,  always  exaggerated  the  importance,  and  above 
all,  the  rights  of  society;  this  was  largely  due,  doubt¬ 
less,  to  the  sacred  and  religious  character  with  which 
society  was  clothed  in  the  beginning. 


*  Plutarch,  Publicola ,  12. 


*  Cicero,  De  Legib .,  III.  3. 


CHAP.  1.  PATRICIANS  AND  CLIENTS.  299 


BOOK  FOURTH. 

THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Patricians  and  Clients. 

Certainly  we  could  imagine  nothing  more  solidly 
constituted  than  this  family  of  the  ancient  ages,  which 
contained  within  itself  its  gods,  its  worship,  its  priest, 
and  its  magistrate.  There  could  be  nothing  stronger 
than  this  city,  which  also  had  in  itself  its  religion,  its 
protecting  gods,  and  its  independent  priesthood,  which 
governed  the  soul  as  well  as  the  body  of  man,  and  which, 
infinitely  more  powerful  than  the  states  of  our  day, 
united  in  itself  the  double  authority  that  we  now  see 
shared  between  the  state  and  the  church.  If  any  so¬ 
ciety  was  ever  established  to  last,  it  was  certainly  that. 
Still,  like  everything  human,  it  had  its  revolutions. 
We  cannot  state  at  what  period  these  revolutions  com¬ 
menced.  We  can  understand  that,  in  reality,  this  epoch 
was  not  the  same  for  the  different  cities  of  Greece  and 
Italy.  All  that  is  certain  is,  that  from  the  seventh  cen¬ 
tury  before  our  era,  this  social  organization  was  almost 
everywhere  discussed  and  attacked.  From  that  time 
it  was  supported  only  with  difficulty,  and  by  a  more  or 
less  skilful  combination  of  resistance  and  concessions. 


300 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


It  struggled  thus  for  several  centuries,  in  the  midst  of 
perpetual  contests,  and  finally  disappeared. 

The  causes  of  its  destruction  may  be  reduced  to  two. 
One  was  the  change  which  took  place  in  the  course  of 
time  in  ideas,  resulting  from  the  natural  development 
of  the  human  mind,  and  which,  in  effacing  ancient 
beliefs,  at  the  same  time  caused  the  social  edifice  to 
crumble,  which  these  beliefs  had  built,  and  could  alone 
sustain.  The  other  was  a  class  of  men  who  found 
themselves  placed  outside  this  city  organization,  and 
who  suffered  from  it.  These  men  had  an  interest  in 
destroying  it,  and  made  war  upon  it  continually. 

When,  therefore,  the  beliefs,  on  which  this  social  re¬ 
gime  was  founded,  became  weakened,  and  the  interests 
of  the  majority  of  men  were  at  war  with  it,  the  sys¬ 
tem  fell.  No  city  escaped  this  law  of  transformation; 
Sparta  no  more  than  Athens,  Rome  no  more  than 
Gi  ’eece.  We  have  seen  that  the  men  of  Greece  and 
those  of  Italy  had  originally  the  same  beliefs,  and  that 
the  same  series  of  institutions  was  developed  among 
both;  and  we  shall  now  see  that  all  these  cities  passed  ' 
through  similar  revolutions. 

We  must  try  to  understand  why  and  how  men  became 
separated  from  this  ancient  organization,  not  to  fall,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  to  advance  towards  a  social  organiza¬ 
tion  larger  and  better.  For  under  the  semblance  of 
disorder,  and  sometimes  of  decay,  each  of  their  changes 
brought  them  nearer  an  object  which  they  did  not  com¬ 
prehend. 

Thus  far  we  have  not  spoken  of  the  lower  classes, 
because  we  have  had  no  occasion  to  speak  of  them. 
For  we  have  been  attempting  to  describe  the  primitive 
organization  of  the  city  ;  and  the  lower  classes  counted 
absolutely  for  nothing  in  that  organism.  The  city  was 


CHAP.  I. 


PATRICIANS  AND  CLIENTS. 


301 


constituted  as  if  these  classes  had  not  existed.  We 
were  able  therefore  to  defer  the  study  of  these  till  we 
had  arrived  at  the  period  of  the  revolutions. 

The  ancient  city,  like  all  human  society,  had  ranks, 
distinctions,  and  inequalities.  We  know  the  distinc¬ 
tion  originally  made  at  Athens  between  the  Eupatrids 
and  the  Thetes  ;  at  Sparta  we  find  the  class  of  Equals 
and  that  of  the  Inferiors;  and  in  Euboea,  that  of  the 
Knights  and  that  of  the  People.  The  history  of  Rome 
is  full  of  the  struggles  between  the  Patricians  and  Pie- 
beians,  struggles  that  we  find  in  all  the  Sabine,  Latin, 
and  Etruscan  cities.  We  can  even  remark  that  the 
higher  we  ascend  in  the  history  of  Greece  and  Italy, 
the  more  profound  and  the  more  strongly  marked  the 
distinction  appears  —  a  positive  proof  that  the  in¬ 
equality  did  not  grow  up  with  time,  but  that  it  existed 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  it  was  contemporary  with 
the  birth  of  cities. 

It  is  worth  while  to  inquire  upon  what  principles 
this  division  of  classes  rested.  We  can  thus  the  more 
easily  see  by  virtue  of  what  ideas  or  what  needs  the 
struggles  commenced,  what  the  inferior  classes  claimed, 
and  on  what  principles  the  superior  classes  defended 
their  empire. 

We  have  seen  above  that  the  city  grew  out  of  the 
confederation  of  families  and  tribes.  Now,  before  the 
day  on  which  the  city  was  founded,  the  family  already 
contained  within  itself  this  distinction  of  classes.  In¬ 
deed,  the  family  was  never  dismembered  ;  it  was  indivis¬ 
ible,  like  the  primitive  religion  of  the  hearth.  The  oldest 
son  alone,  succeeding  the  father,  took  possession  of  the 
priesthood,  the  property,  and  the  authority,  and  his 
brothers  were  to  him  what  they  had  been  to  their  fa¬ 
ther.  From  generation  to  generation,  from  first-bom 


302 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


to  first-born,  there  was  never  but  one  family  chief.  île 
presided  at  the  sacrifice,  repeated  the  prayer,  pro¬ 
nounced  judgment,  and  governed.  To  him  alone  ori¬ 
ginally  belonged  the  title  of  pater  ;  for  this  word,  which 
signified  power,  and  not  paternity,  could  be  applied 
only  to  the  chief  of  the  family.  His  sons,  his  brothers, 
his  servants,  all  called  him  by  this  title. 

Here,  then,  in  the  inner  constitution  of  the  family  is 
the  first  principle  of  inequality.  The  oldest  is  the  priv¬ 
ileged  one  for  the  worship,  for  the  succession,  and  for 
command.  After  several  centuries,  there  were  natu¬ 
rally  formed,  in  each  of  these  great  families,  younger 
branches,  that  were,  according  to  religion  and  by  cus¬ 
tom,  inferior  to  the  older  branch,  and  who,  living  under 
its  protection,  submitted  to  its  authority. 

This  family,  then,  had  servants,  who  did  not  leave  it, 
who  were  hereditarily  attached  to  it,  and  upon  whom 
the  pater,  or  patron,  exercised  the  triple  authority  of 
master,  magistrate,  and  priest.  They  were  called  by 
names  that  varied  with  the  locality:  the  more  common 
names  were  Clients  and  Thetes. 

Here  was  another  inferior  class.  The  client  was  infe¬ 
rior  not  only  to  the  supreme  chief  of  the  family,  but  to 
the  younger  branches  also.  Between  him  and  them 
there  was  this  difference,  that  a  member  of  a  younger 
branch,  by  ascending  the  series  of  his  ancestors,  always 
arrived  at  a  pater,  that  is  to  say,  a  family  chief,  one  of 
those  divine  ancestors,  whom  the  family  invoked  in  its 
prayers.  As  he  was  descended  from  a  pater,  they  called 
him  in  Latin  patricius.  The  son  of  a  client,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  however  high  he  might  ascend  in  his  genealogy, 
never  arrived  at  anything  but  a  client  or  a  slave.  There 
was  no  pater  among  his  ancestors.  Hence  came  for  him 
a  state  of  inferiority  from  which  there  was  no  escape. 


CHAP.  I. 


PATRICIANS  AND  CLIENTS. 


303 


The  distinction  between  these  two  classes  of  men 
was  manifest  in  what  concerned  material  interests. 
The  property  of  the  family  belonged  entirely  to  the 
chief,  who,  however,  shared  the  enjoyment  of  it  with 
the  younger  branches,  and  even  with  the  clients.  But 
while  the  younger  branch  had  at  least  an  eventual  right 
to  this  property,  in  case  of  the  extinction  of  the  elder 
branch,  the  client  could  never  become  a  proprietor. 
The  land  that  he  cultivated  he  had  only  in  trust;  if  he 
died,  it  returned  to  his  patron  ;  Roman  law  of  the  later 
ages  preserved  a  vestige  of  this  ancient  rule  in  what 
was  called  jus  applicationis.  The  client’s  money,  even, 
did  not  belong  to  him  ;  the  patron  was  the  true  owner 
of  it,  and  could  take  it  for  his  own  needs.  It  was  by 
virtue  of  this  ancient  rule  that  the  Roman  law  required 
the  client  to  endow  the  daughter  of  the  patron,  to  pay 
the  patron’s  fine,  and  to  furnish  his  ransom,  or  con¬ 
tribute  to  the  expenses  of  his  magistracy. 

The  distinction  is  still  more  manifest  in  religion. 
The  descendant  of  the  pater  alone  can  perform  the 
ceremonies  of  the  family  worship.  The  client  takes  a 
part  in  it;  a  sacrifice  is  offered  for  him  ;  he  does  not 
offer  it  for  himself.  Between  him  and  the  domestic 
divinity  there  is  always  a  mediator.  He  cannot  even 
replace  the  absent  family.  If  this  family  becomes  ex¬ 
tinct,  the  clients  do  not  continue  the  worship  ;  they  are 
dispersed.  For  the  religion  is  not  their  patrimony; 
it  is  not  of  their  blood,  it  does  not  come  from  their 
own  ancestors.  It  is  a  borrowed  religion  ;  they  have 
not  the  enjoyment  or  the  ownership  of  it. 

Let  us  keep  in  mind  that  according  to  the  ideas 
of  ancient  generations,  the  right  to  have  a  god  and  to 
pray  was  hereditary.  The  sacred  tradition,  the  rites, 
the  sacramental  words,  the  powerful  formulas  which 


304 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


determined  the  gods  to  act,  —  all  this  was  transmitted 
only  with  the  blood.  It  was  therefore  very  natural 
that  m  each  of  these  ancient  families,  the  free  person 
who  was  really  descended  from  the  first  ancestor,  was 
alone  in  possession  of  the  sacerdotal  character.  The 
Patricians  or  Eupatrids  had  the  privilege  of  being 
priests,  and  of  having  a  religion  that  belonged  to  them 
alone. 

Thus,  even  before  men  left  the  family  state,  there 
existed  a  distinction  of  classes  ;  the  old  domestic  re¬ 
ligion  had  established  ranks.  Afterwards,  when  the 
city  was  formed,  nothing  was  changed  in  the  inner  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  family.  We  have  already  shown  that 
originally  the  city  was  not  an  association  of  individuals, 
but  a  confederation  of  tribes,  curies,  and  families,  and 
that  in  this  sort  of  alliance  each  of  these  bodies  re¬ 
mained  what  it  had  been  before.  The  chiefs  of  these 
little  groups  united  with  each  other,  but  each  remained 
master  in  the  little  society  of  which  he  was  already 
chief.  This  explains  why  the  Roman  law  so  long  left 
to  th q  pater  the  absolute  authority  over  his  family,  and 
the  control  of  and  the  right  of  judging  his  clients. 
The  distinction  of  classes,  born  in  the  family,  was  con¬ 
tinued  therefore  in  the  city. 

The  city  in  its  first  age  was  no  more  than  an  alliance 
of  the  heads  of  families.  There  are  numerous  evi¬ 
dences  of  a  time  when  they  alone  were  citizens.  This 
rule  was  kept  up  at  Sparta,  where  the  younger  sons 
had  no  political  rights.  We  may  still  see  vestiges  of 
it  in  an  ancient  law  of  Athens,  which  declared  that  to 
be  a  citizen  one  must  have  a  domestic  god.1  Aristotle 
remarks  that  anciently,  in  many  cities,  it  was  the  rule 
that  the  son  was  not  a  citizen  during  the  life  of  his 

1  Harpocration,  Zevç  sQxtîoç 


CHAP.  I. 


PAT.  RICIAN S  AND  CLIENTS. 


305 


father,  and  that,  the  father  being  dead,  the  oldest  son 
alone  enjoyed  political  rights.1  The  law  then  counted 
in  the  city  neither  the  younger  branches  of  the  family, 
nor,  for  still  stronger  reason,  the  clients.  Aristotle 
also  adds  that  the  real  citizens  were  at  that  time  very 
few. 

The  assembly  which  deliberated  on  the  general  in¬ 
terests  of  the  city  was  composed,  in  those  ancient  times, 
only  of  heads  of  families — patres.  We  may  be  al¬ 
lowed  to  doubt  Cicero  when  he  tells  us  that  Romulus 
called  the  senators  fathers ,  to  mark  their  paternal 
affection  for  the  people.  The  members  of  the  senate 
naturally  bore  this  title  because  they  were  the  chiefs 
of  the  gentes.  At  the  same  time  that  these  men, 
united,  represented  the  city,  each  one  of  them  re¬ 
mained  absolute  master  in  his  gens,  which  was  for  him 
a  kind  of  little  kingdom.  We  also  see,  from  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  Rome,  another  more  numerous  assembly, 
that  of  the  curies  ;  but  it  differs  very  little  from  that 
of  the  patres.  These  formed  the  principal  element  of 
this  assembly  ;  only,  every  pater  appeared  there  sur¬ 
rounded  by  his  family  ;  his  relatives,  his  clients,  even, 
formed  his  cortege,  and  marked  his  power.  Each  family 
had,  moreover,  but  one  vote  in  the  comitia.2  The  chief 
might,  indeed,  consult  his  relations,  and  even  his  clients, 
but  he  alone  voted.  Besides,  the  law  forbade  a  client 
to  have  a  different  opinion  from  his  patron.  If  the 
clients  were  connected  with  the  city,  it  was  through 
ttieir  patrician  chiefs.  They  took  part  in  public  wor- 

1  Aristotle,  Pol.,  VIII.  5,2-3. 

*  Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27.  We  shall  see  that  clientship  under¬ 
went  changes  later.  We  speak  here  only  of  the  first  ages  of 
Rome. 


20 


306 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


ship,  they  appeared  before  the  tribunal,  they  entered 
the  assembly,  but  it  was  in  the  suite  of  their  patrons. 

We  must  not  picture  to  ourselves  the  city  of  these  an¬ 
cient  ages  as  an  agglomeration  of  men  living  mingled 
together  within  the  enclosure  of  the  same  walls.  In 
the  earliest  times  the  city  was  hardly  the  place  of  hab¬ 
itation  ;  it  was  the  sanctuary  where  the  gods  of  the 
community  were;  it  was  the  fortress  which  defended 
them,  and  which  their  presence  sanctified;  it  was  the 
centra  of  the  association,  the  residence  of  the  king  and 
the  priests,  the  place  where  justice  was  administered  ; 
but  the  people  did  not  live  there.  For  several  genera¬ 
tions  yet  men  continued  to  live  outside  the  city,  in 
isolated  families,  that  divided  the  soil  among  them. 
Each  of  these  families  occupied  its  canton,  where  it  had 
its  domestic  sanctuary,  and  where  it  formed,  under  the 
authority  of  its  pater ,  an  indivisible  group.  Then,  on 
certain  days,  if  the  interests  of  the  city  or  the  obliga¬ 
tions  of  the  common  worship  called,  the  chiefs  of  these 
families  repaired  to  the  city  and  assembled  around  the 
king,  either  to  deliberate  or  to  assist  at  a  sacrifice.  If 
it  was  a  question  of  war,  each  of  these  chiefs  arrived, 
followed  by  his  family  and  his  servants  ( sua  manus)  : 
they  were  grouped  by  phratries,  or  curies,  and  formed 
the  army  of  the  city,  under  the  comm^nu  the  king. 


CHAV?.  II. 


THE  PLEBEIANS. 


307 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Plebeians. 

We  must  now  point  out  another  element  of  the 
population,  which  was  below  the  clients  themselves, 
and  which,  originally  low,  insensibly  acquired  strength 
enough  to  break  the  ancient  social  organization.  This 
class,  which  became  more  numerous  at  Rome  than  in 
any  other  city,  was  there  called  the  plebs .  We  must 
understand  the  origin  and  character  of  this  class  to 
understand  the  part  it  played  in  the  history  of  the 
city,  and  of  the  family,  among  the  ancients.  The  ple¬ 
beians  were  not  the  clients  ;  the  historians  of  antiq¬ 
uity  do  not  confound  these  two  classes.  Livy,  in  one 
place,  says,  “  The  plebeians  did  not  wish  to  take  part 
in  the  election  of  the  consuls;  the  consuls  were  there¬ 
fore  elected  by  the  patricians  and  their  clients.”  And 
in  another,  “  The  plebeians  complained  that  the  patri¬ 
cians  had  too  much  influence  in  the  comitia,  on  account 
of  the  votes  of  their  clients.”  1  In  Dionysius  of  Hali¬ 
carnassus  we  read,  “The  plebeians  left  Rome  and  re¬ 
tired  to  Mons  Sacer;  the  patricians  remained  alone  in 
the  city  with  their  clients.’'  And  farther  along,  “  The 
plebeians,  being  dissatisfied,  refused  to  enroll  their 
names.  The  patricians,  with  their  clients,  took  arms 
and  carried  on  the  war.”  2  These  plebeians,  completely 
distinct  from  the  clients,  formed  no  part  of  what  was 
called  the  Roman  people,  at  least  in  the  first  centuries. 


1  Livy,  II.  64  ;  II.  56. 

*  Dionysius,  YI.  46;  VII.  19;  X.  87. 


308 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


In  an  old  prayer,  which  was  still  repeated  in  the  time 
of  the  Punic  wars,  the  gods  were  asked  to  be  propitious 
“to  the  people  and  the  plebs.”  1  The  plebs  were  not, 
therefore,  comprised  in  the  people,  at  any  rate  not 
originally.  The  people  comprised  the  patricians  and 
the  clients:  the  plebs  were  excluded. 

What  constituted  the  peculiar  character  of  the  plebs 
was,  that  they  were  foreign  to  the  religious  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  city,  and  even  to  that  of  the  family.  By 
this  we  recognize  the  plebeian,  and  distinguish  him 
from  the  client.  The  client  shared  at  least  in  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  his  patron,  and  made  a  part  of  the  family  and 
of  the  gens.  The  plebeian,  at  first,  had  no  worship, 
and  knew  nothing  of  the  sacred  family. 

What  we  have  already  seen  of  the  social  and  religious 
state  of  ancient  times  explains  to  us  how  this  class 
took  its  rise.  Religion  was  not  propagated  ;  born 
in  a  family,  it  remained,  as  it  were,  shut  in  there; 
each  family  was  forced  to  create  its  creed,  its  gods,  and 
its  worship.  But  there  must  have  been,  in  those  times, 
so  distant  from  us,  a  great  number  of  families  in  which 
the  mind  had  not  the  power  to  create  gods,  to  arrange 
a  doctrine,  to  institute  a  worship,  to  invent  hymns,  and 

Livy,  XXIX.  27  :  Ut  ea  mihi  populo  plebique  Romance  bene 
vei  runcent.  Cicero,  pro  Murena ,  I.  Ut  ea  res  mihi  magistra- 
tvique  meo,  populo  plebique  Romance  bene  atque  féliciter  eve- 
mat.  Macrobius  ( Saturn .,  I.  17)  cites  an  ancient  oracle  of 
the  prophet  Marcius,  which  had  the  words,  Prceior  qui  jus 
populo  plebique  dabit.  That  ancient  writers  have  not  always 
paid  attention  to  this  essential  distinction  between  populus  and 
plebs  ought  not  to  surprise  us,  when  we  recollect  that  the  dis¬ 
tinction  no  longer  existed  at  the  time  when  they  wrote.  In 
Cicero’s  age  the  plebs  had  for  several  centuries  legally  made  a 
part  of  the  populus.  But  the  old  formulas  which  Livy,  Cicero, 
and  Macrobius  cite,  remain  as  memorials  of  the  time  when  the 
two  classes  were  not  yet  confounded. 


CHAP.  n. 


THE  PLEBEIANS. 


309 


the  rhythm  of  the  prayer.  These  families  naturally 
found  themselves  in  a  state  of  inferiority  compared 
with  those  who  had  a  religion,  and  could  not  make  a 
part  of  society  with  them;  they  entered  neither  into 
the  curies  nor  into  the  city.  In  the  course  of  time  it 
even  happened  that  families  which  had  a  religion  lost 
it  either  by  negligence,  forgetting  the  rites,  or  by  one 
of*  those  crimes  which  prevented  a  man  from  approach¬ 
ing  his  hearth  and  continuing  his  worship.  It  must 
have  happened,  also,  that  clients,  on  account  of  crime 
or  bad  treatment,  quitted  the  family  and  renounced  its 
religion.  The  son,  too,  who  was  born  of  a  marriage  in 
which  the  rites  had  not  been  performed,  was  reputed  a 
bastard,  like  one  who  had  been  born  of  adultery,  and 
the  family  religion  did  not  exist  for  him.  All  these 
men,  excluded  from  the  family  and  from  the  worship, 
fell  into  the  class  of  men  without  a  sacred  fire  —  that 
is  to  say,  became  plebeians. 

We  find  this  class  around  almost  all  the  ancient  cities, 
but  separated  by  a  line  of  demarcation.  Originally  a 
Greek  city  was  double;  there  was  the  city,  properly  so 
called  —  nôhç,  which  was  built  ordinarily  on  the  sum¬ 
mit  of  some  hill;  it  had  been  built  with  the  religious 
rites,  and  enclosed  the  sanctuary  of  the  national  gods. 
At  the  foot  of  the  hill  was  found  an  agglomération  of 
houses,  which  were  built  without  any  religious  ceremo¬ 
ny,  and  without  a  sacred  enclosure.  These  were  the 
dwellings  of  the  plebeians,  who  could  not  live  in  the 
sacred  city. 

At  Rome  the  difference  between  the  two  classes  was 
striking.  The  city  of  the  patricians  and  their  clients 
was  the  one  that  Romulus  founded,  according  to  the 
rites,  on  the  Falatine.  The  dwellings  of  the  plebs  were 
in  the  asylum,  a  species  of  enclosure  situated  on  the 


310 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


book  n 


slope  of  the  Capitoline  Hill,  where  Romulus  admitted 
people  without  hearth  or  home,  whom  he  could  not 
admit  into  his  city.  Later,  when  new  plebeians  came 
to  Rome,  as  they  were  strangers  to  the  religion  of  the 
city,  they  were  established  on  the  Aventine  —  that  is 
to  say,  without  the  pomœrium,  or  religious  city. 

One  word  characterizes  these  plebeians  —  they  were 
without  a  hearth  ;  they  did  not  possess,  in  the  begin¬ 
ning,  at  least,  any  domestic  altars.  Their  adversaries 
were  always  reproaching  them  with  having  no  ances¬ 
tors,  which  certainly  meant  that  they  had  not  the  wor¬ 
ship  of  ancestors,  and  had  no  family  tomb  where  they 
could  carry  their  funeral  repast.  They  had  no  father  — 
pater  /  that  is  to  say,  they  ascended  the  series  of  their 
ascendants  in  vain  ;  they  never  arrived  at  a  religious 
family  chief.  They  had  no  family — gentem  non 
habent  ;  that  is  to  say,  they  had  only  the  natural  fam¬ 
ily;  as  to  the  one  which  religion  formed  and  consti¬ 
tuted,  they  had  not  that. 

The  sacred  marriage  did  not  exist  for  them;  they 
knew  not  its  rites.  Having  no  hearth,  the  union  that 
the  hearth  established  was  forbidden  to  them  ;  there¬ 
fore  the  patricians,  who  knew  no  other  regular  union 
than  that  which  united  husband  and  wife  in  presence 
of  the  domestic  divinity,  could  say,  in  speaking  of  the 
plebeians,  “  Connubia  promiscua  habent  more  fera - 
rum  ”  There  was  no  family  for  them,  no  paternal 
authority.  They  had  the  power  over  their  children 
which  strength  gave  them  ;  but  that  sacred  authority 
with  which  religion  clothed  the  father,  they  had  not. 

For  them  there  was  no  right  of  property;  for  all 
property  was  established  and  consecrated  by  a  hearth, 
a  tomb,  and  termini  —  that  is  to  say,  by  all  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  the  domestic  worship.  If  the  plebeian  pos- 


CHAP.  11. 


THE  PLEBEIANS. 


311 


sessed  land,  that  land  had  no  sacred  character;  it  was 
profane,  and  had  no  boundaries.  But  could  he  hold 
land  in  the  earliest  times?  We  know  that  at  Rome 
no  one  could  exercise  the  right  of  property  if  he  was 
not  a  citizen  ;  and  the  plebeian,  in  the  first  ages  of 
Rome,  was  not  a  citizen.  According  to  the  juris¬ 
consult,  one  could  not  be  a  proprietor  except  by  qui- 
ritary  right  ;  but  the  plebeians  were  not  counted  at 
first  among  the  Quirites.  At  the  foundation  of  Rome 
tl  e  ager  Romanus  was  divided  up  among  the  tribes, 
the  curies,  and  the  gentes.  Now,  the  plebeians,  who 
belonged  to  none  of  these  groups,  certainly  did  not 
share  in  the  division.  These  plebeians,  who  had  no 
religion,  had  not  the  qualification  which  enabled  a  man 
to  make  a  portion  of  the  soil  his  own.  We  know  that 
they  long  inhabited  the  Aventine,  and  built  houses 
there;  but  it  was  only  after  three  centuries,  and  many 
struggles,  that  they  finally  obtained  the  ownership  of 
this  territory. 

For  the  plebeians  there  was  no  law,  no  justice,  since 
the  law  was  the  decision  of  religion,  and  the  procedure 
was  a  body  of  rites.  The  client  had  the  benefit  of  the 
Roman  franchise  through  his  patron  ;  but  for  the  ple¬ 
beian  this  right  did  not  exist.  An  ancient  historian 
says  formally  that  the  sixth  king  of  Rome  was  the  first 
to  make  laws  for  the  plebs,  whilst  the  patricians  had 
had  theirs  for  a  long  time.1  It  appears  even  that  these 
laws  were  afterwards  withdrawn  from  the  plebs,  or  that, 
not  being  founded  upon  religion,  the  patricians  refused 
to  pay  any  attention  to  them.  For  we  see  in  the  histo¬ 
rian  that,  when  tribunes  were  created,  a  special  law 
was  required  to  protect  their  lives  and  liberty,  and  that 


1  Dionysius,  IV.  43. 


312 


THE  EE  VOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


this  law  was  worded  thus:  “Let  no  one  undertake  to 
strike  or  kill  a  tribune  as  he  would  one  of  the  plebs.”  1 
It  seems,  therefore,  that  any  one  had  a  right  to  strike 
or  to  kill  a  plebeian  ;  or,  at  least,  that  this  misdeed 
committed  against  a  man  who  was  beyond  the  pale  of 
the  law  was  not  punished. 

The  plebeians  had  no  political  rights.  They  were 
not  at  first  citizens,  and  no  one  among  them  could  be 
a  magistrate.  For  two  centuries  there  was  no  other 
assembly  at  Rome  than  that  of  the  curies;  and  the 
curies  did  not  include  the  plebeians.  The  plebs  did  not 
even  enter  into  the  composition  of  the  army  so  long  as 
that  was  distributed  by  curies. 

But  what  manifestly  separated  the  plebeian  from  the 
patrician  was,  that  the  plebeian  had  no  part  in  the  re¬ 
ligion  of  the  city.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  fill 
the  priestly  office.  We  may  even  suppose  that  in  the 
earliest  ages  prayer  was  forbidden  him,  and  that  the 
rites  could  not  be  revealed  to  him.  It  was  as  in  India 
where  “the  Sudra.  should  always  be  ignorant  of  the 
sacred  formulas.”  He  was  a  foreigner,  and  consequently 
his  presence  alone  defiled  the  sacrifice.  lie  was  re¬ 
pulsed  by  the  gods.  Between  him  and  the  patrician 
there  was  all  the  distance  that  religion  could  place 
between  two  men.  The  plebs  were  a  despised  and 
abject  class,  beyond  the  pale  of  religion,  law,  society, 
and  the  family.  The  patrician  could  compare  such  an 
existence  only  with  that  of  the  brutes  —  more  ferarum. 
The  touch  of  the  plebeian  was  impure.  The  decem¬ 
virs,  in  their  first  ten  tables,  had  forgotten  to  interdict 
marriage  between  the  two  orders;  for  these  first  de¬ 
cemvirs  were  all  patricians,  and  it  never  entered  the 


1  Dionysius,  VI.  89. 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  PLEBEIANS. 


313 


mind  of  one  of  them  that  such  a  marriage  was  pos¬ 
sible. 

We  see  how  many  classes  in  the  primitive  age  of 
the  cities  were  superposed  one  above  another.  At  the 
head  was  the  aristocracy  of  family  chiefs,  those  whom 
the  official  language  of  Rome  called  patres ,  whom  the 
clients  called  reges ,  whom  the  Odyssey  names  fiaads î; 
or  aruxTsç.  Below  were  the  younger  branches  of  the 
families  ;  still  lower  were  the  clients  ;  and  lowest  were 
the  plebs. 

This  distinction  of  classes  came  from  religion.  For 
at  the  time  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Greeks,  the 
Italians,  and  the  Hindus  still  lived  together  in  Central 
Asia,  religion  had  said,  “The  oldest  shall  offer  prayer.” 
From  this  came  the  pre-eminence  of  the  oldest  in  every¬ 
thing  ;  the  oldest  branch  in  every  family  had  been  the 
sacerdotal  and  dominant  branch.  Still  religion  made 
great  account  of  the  younger  branches,  who  were  a 
species  of  reserve,  to  replace  the  older  branch  some 
day,  if  it  should  become  extinct,  and  to  save  the  wor¬ 
ship.  It  also  made  some  account  of  the  client,  and 
even  of  the  slave,  because  they  assisted  in  the  religious 
acts.  But  the  plebeian,  who  had  no  part  in  the  wor¬ 
ship,  it  reckoned  as  absolutely  of  no  account.  The 
ranks  had  been  thus  fixed. 

But  none  of  the  social  arrangements  which  man 
studies  out  and  establishes  is  unchangeable.  This  car¬ 
ried  in  itself  the  germ  of  disease  and  death,  which  was 
too  great  an  inequality.  Many  men  had  an  interest  in 
destroying  a  social  organization  that  had  no  benefits 
for  them. 


314 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


CHAPTER  III. 

First  Revolution. 

1.  Political  Authority  taken  from  the  Kings . 

We  have  said  that,  originally,  the  king  was  the 
religious  chief  of  the  city,  the  high-priest  of  the  public 
hearth,  and  that  he  had  added  political  authority  to 
ihe  priestly,  because  it  appeared  natural  that  the  man 
who  represented  the  religion  of  the  city  should  at  the 
same  time  be  the  president  of  the  assembly,  the  judge, 
and  the  head  of  the  army.  By  virtue  of  this  principle, 
it  happened  that  all  the  powers  of  the  state  became 
united  in  the  hands  of  the  kin". 

o 

But  the  heads  of  families,  the  patres,  and  above  them 
the  chiefs  of  the  phratries  and  tribes,  formed,  by  the 
side  of  this  king,  a  very  powerful  aristocracy.  The  king 
was  not  the  only  king;  every  pater  was  king  in  his  own 
gens:  even  at  Rome  it  was  an  ancient  custom  to  call 
each  one  of  these  powerful  patrons  by  the  name  of  king. 
At  Athens  every  phratry  and  every  tribe  had  its  chief, 
and  by  the  side  of  the  king  of  the  city  there  were  the 
kings  of  the  tribes,  yvkoBaadsig.  It  was  a  hierarchy  of 
chiefs,  all  having,  in  a  more  or  less  extended  domain, 
the  same  attributes  and  the  same  inviolability.  The 
king  of  the  city  did  not  exercise  his  authority  over  the 
entire  population  ;  the  interior  of  families  and  all  the 
clients  escaped  his  action.  Like  the  feudal  king  who 
had  as  subjects  only  a  few  powerful  vassals,  this  king 
of  the  ancient  city  commanded  only  the  chiefs  of  the 
tribes  and  the  gentes,  each  one  of  whom  might  be  in* 


CHA.P.  Ill, 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


315 


dividually  as  powerful  as  he,  and  who,  united,  were 
much  more  powerful.  We  can  easily  believe  that  he 
had  some  difficulty  in  commanding  obedience.  Men 
would  have  great  respect  for  him,  because  he  was  the 
head  of  the  worship,  and  guardian  of  the  sacred  hearth; 
but  they  might  not  be  very  submissive,  since  he  had 
little  power.  The  governors  and  the  governed  were 
not  long  in  perceiving  that  they  were  not  of  the  same 
opinion  on  the  measure  of  obedience  that  was  due. 
The  kings  wished  to  be  powerful,  and  the  patres  pre¬ 
ferred  that  they  should  not  be.  A  struggle  then  com¬ 
menced  in  all  the  cities,  between  the  aristocracy  and 
the  kings. 

Everywhere  the  issue  of  the  struggle  was  the  same. 
Royalty  was  vanquished.  But  we  must  not  forget  that 
this  primitive  royalty  was  sacred.  The  king  was  the 
man  who  pronounced  the  prayers,  who  offered  the  sacri¬ 
fice,  who  had,  in  fine,  by  hereditary  right,  the  power 
to  call  down  upon  the  city  the  protection  of  the  gods. 
Men  could  not  think,  therefore,  of  doing  away  with 
the  king  ;  one  was  necessary  to  their  religion  ;  one  was 
necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  city.  So  we  see  in  all 
the  cities  whose  history  is  known  to  us,  that  they  did 
not  at  first  touch  the  religious  authority  of  the  king, 
and  contented  themselves  with  taking  away  his  politi¬ 
cal  power.  This  was  only  a  sort  of  appendix,  which 
the  kings  had  added  to  their  priesthood,  and  was  not, 
like  that,  sacred  and  inviolable.  It  might  be  taken 
from  the  kings  without  imperilling  religion. 

Royalty  was,  therefore,  preserved  ;  but,  shorn  of  its 
power,  it  was  no  longer  anything  but  a  priesthood. 
“In  very  ancient  times,”  says  Aristotle,  “kings  had 
absolute  power  in  peace  and  war  ;  but  in  the  course 
of  time  some  renounced  this  power  voluntarily,  from 


316 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


others  it  was  taken  by  force,  and  nothing  was  left  to 
these  kings  but  the  care  of  the  sacrifices.”  Plutarch 
gives  a  similar  account  :  “As  the  kings  displayed  pride 
and  rigor  in  their  commands,  the  greater  part  of  the 
Greeks  took  away  their  power,  and  left  them  only  the 
care  of  religion.”  1  Herodotus,  speaking  of  the  city  of 
Cyrene,  says,  “They  left  to  Battus,  a  descendant  of  the 
kings,  the  care  of  the  worship  and  the  possession  of 
the  sacred  lands,  but  they  took  away  all  the  power 
which  his  fathers  had  enjoyed.” 

This  royalty,  thus  reduced  to  a  priesthood,  con¬ 
tinued,  in  most  cases,  to  be  hereditary  in  the  sacred 
family  that  had  long  before  established  the  hearth  and 
commenced  the  national  worship.  In  the  time  of  the 
Roman  empire  —  that  is  to  say,  seven  or  eight  centuries 
after  this  revolution,  —  there  were  yet  at  Ephesus,  at 
Marseilles,  and  at  Thespiæ,  families  who  preserved 
the  title  and  insignia  of  ancient  royalty,  and  who  still 
presided  over  religious  ceremonies.2  In  the  other  cities 
the  sacred  families  were  extinct,  and  the  kingly  office 
had  become  elective,  and  generally  annual. 

2.  History  of  this  Hevolution  at  Sparta. 

Sparta  always  had  kings,  and  still  the  revolution  of 
which  we  speak  was  accomplished  here  as  well  as  in 
the  other  cities. 

It  appears  that  the  first  Dorian  kings  reigned  as 
absolute  masters.  But  in  the  third  generation  the 
struggle  commenced  between  the  kings  and  the  aris¬ 
tocracy.  During  two  centuries  there  was  a  series  of 
struggles,  which  made  Sparta  one  of  the  most  un- 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  II I.  9,  8.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  63. 

*  Strabo,  IV.  ;  IX.  Diodorus,  IV.  29. 


CHAP.  III. 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


317 


quiet  cities  in  Greece.  We  know  that  one  of  these 
kings,  the  father  of  Lycurgus,  was  killed  by  the  blow 
of  a  stone  in  a  civil  war.1 

Nothing  is  more  obscure  than  the  history  of  Lycur¬ 
gus.  His  ancient  biographer  commences  with  these 
words:  “  We  can  say  nothing  of  him  that  is  not  subject 
to  controversy.”  It  seems  certain,  at  least,  that  Lycur¬ 
gus  appeared  in  a  time  of  dissensions,  “at  a  time  when 
the  government  floated  in  the  midst  of  perpetual  agita¬ 
tion.”  What  appears  the  most  clearly  from  all  the  in¬ 
formation  that  has  come  down  to  us  concerning  him, 
is,  that  his  reform  dealt  loyalty  a  blow  from  which  it 
never  recovered.  “Under  Charilaus,”  says  Aristotle, 
“the  monarchy  gave  place  to  an  aristocracy.” 2  Now, 
this  Charilaus  was  king  when  Lycurgus  made  his  re¬ 
form.  We  know,  moreover,  from  Plutarch,  that  Lycur¬ 
gus  was  intrusted  with  the  duty  of  making  laws  only 
when  a  civil  disturbance  arose,  during  which  king 
Charilaus  sought  safety  in  a  temple.  Lycurgus  had 
for  a  moment  the  power  to  suppress  royalty  :  he  took 
good  care  not  to  do  this,  judging  that  royalty  was 
necessary,  and  the  royal  family  inviolable.  But  he 
arranged  so  that  the  kings  were  thenceforth  subordinate 
to  the  senate  in  whatever  concerned  the  government, 
and  that  they  were  no  longer  anything  more  than 
presidents  of  this  assembly,  and  the  executors  of  its 
decrees.  A  century  later,  royalty  was  still  farther 
weakened;  the  executive  power  was  taken  away  and, 
was  intrusted  to  annual  magistrates,  who  were  called 
ephors . 

1  Strabo,  VIII.  5.  Plutarch,  Lycurgus,  2. 

*  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  10,  3  (V.  10).  Heracleides  of 
Pontus,  in  Fragm.  Hist.  Grcec.,  coll.  Didot,  t.  II.  p.  11.  Plu¬ 
tarch,  Lycurgus ,  4. 


318 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


It  is  easy  to  judge  by  the  duties  of  the  ephors  what 
those  were  that  were  left  to  the  king.  The  ephors 
pronounced  judgment  in  civil  cases,  while  the  senate 
tried  criminal  cases.  The  ephors,  with  the  advice  of 
the  senate,  declared  war,  or  settled  the  articles  of 
treaties  of  peace.  In  time  of  war  two  ephors  accom¬ 
panied  the  king  and  watched  over  him;  they  decided 
on  the  plan  of  the  campaign,  and  superintended  all  the 
operations.1  What  remained,  then,  for  the  kin^s,  if 
the  law,  the  foreign  relations,  and  military  operations 
were  taken  from  them  ?  They  had  the  priesthood  left. 
Herodotus  describes  their  prerogatives:  “If  the  city 
offers  a  sacrifice,  they  have  the  first  place  at  the  sa¬ 
cred  repast  ;  they  are  served  first,  and  have  a  double 
portion.  They  are  the  first  also  to  make  a  libation, 
and  the  skins  of  the  victims  belong  to  them.  Each 
one  receives,  twice  a  month,  a  victim,  which  he  sacri¬ 
fices  to  Apollo.”  1  “  The  kings,”  says  Xenophon,  “  offer 

the  public  sacrifices,  and  they  have  the  best  parts  of 
the  victims.”  If  they  did  not  act  as  judges  either  in 
civil  or  in  criminal  affairs,  they  still  had  reserved  to 
them  the  right  of  deciding  in  all  affairs  which  con¬ 
cerned  religion.  In  case  of  war,  one  of  the  kings  alwTays 
proceeded  at  the  head  of  the  troops,  offering  sacrifices 
and  consulting  the  presages.  In  presence  of  the  enemy 

1  Thucydides,  V.  63.  Hellanicus,  II.  4.  Xenophon,  Gov.  of 
Laced.,  14  (13);  Bell.,  VI.  4.  Plutarch,  Agesilaus ,  10,  17,  23, 
28;  Ly sander,  23.  The  king  had  so  little,  of  his  own  right,  the 
direction  of  military  affairs,  that  a  special  act  of  the  senate  was 
necessary  to  confirm  the  command  of  the  army  to  Agesilaus, 
who  thus  united  exceptionally  the  functions  of  king  and  general. 
Plutarch,  Agesilaus ,  6;  Lysander ,  23.  It  had  been  the  same 
previously,  in  the  case  of  king  Pausanias.  Thucydides,  l.  128. 

*  Herodotus,  VI.  66,  57. 


CHàP.  III. 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


319 


he  slew  victims,  and  when  the  signs  were  favorable,  he 
gave  the  signal  for  battle.  During  the  combat  he  was 
surrounded  by  diviners,  who  indicated  to  him  the  will 
of  the  gods,  and  flute-players,  who  sounded  the  sa¬ 
cred  hymns.  The  Spartans  said  the  king  commanded, 
because  he  was  in  possession  of  both  religion  and  the 
auspices;  but  the  ephors  and  the  polemarchs  directed 
all  the  movements  of  the  army.1 

We  can  therefore  justly  say  that  the  royalty  of 
Sparta  was  merely  an  hereditary  priesthood.  The  same 
revolution  which  suppressed  the  political  power  of  the 
kings  in  other  cities  suppressed  it  also  in  Sparta.  The 
power  belonged  really  to  the  senate,  which  directed, 
and  to  the  ephors,  who  executed.  The  kings,  in  all 
that  did  not  concern  religion,  obeyed  the  ephors.  He¬ 
rodotus  could  therefore  say  that  Sparta  did  not  know 
the  monarchical  regime  /  and  Aristotle,  that  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  Sparta  was  an  aristocracy.2 

3.  The  same  Revolution  at  Athens . 

We  have  seen  above  what  the  primitive  population 
of  Attica  was.  A  certain  number  of  families,  indepen¬ 
dent  and  without  any  bond  of  union  among  them 
occupied  the  country  ;  each  one  of  them  formed  a 
society,  governed  by  an  hereditary  chief.  Later  these 
families  were  united  in  groups,  and  from  their  associa¬ 
tion  grew  the  Athenian  city.  The  great  work  of  com¬ 
pleting  the  unity  of  Attica  is  attributed  to  Theseus. 
But  the  traditions  add  —  and  we  can  easily  believe  — 
that  Theseus  must  have  met  with  strong  resistance.  The 
class  of  men  who  opposed  him  were  not  the  clients,  or 

1  Xenophon,  Gov .  of  Laced. 

*  Herodotus,  V.  92.  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  10  (V.  10). 


320 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


the  poor,  who  were  scattered  about  in  the  villages  and 
the  ysiTj.  These  men  rejoiced,  rather,  at  a  change 
which  gave  a  chief  to  their  chiefs,  and  assured  to  them¬ 
selves  a  refuge  and  a  protection.  The  ones  who  suf¬ 
fered  by  the  change  were  the  chiefs  of  families,  and  the 
chiefs  of  villages  and  tribes,  the  Gaod&îç,  cpvlo^auiUïç^ 
those  Eupatrids  who,  by  hereditary  right,  held  the 
supreme  authority  in  their  yêvoç ,  or  in  their  tribe. 
These  stoutly  defended  their  independence,  and  when 
it  was  lost  they  lamented  its  loss. 

At  any  rate  they  retained  all  they  could  of  their  an¬ 
cient  independence.  Each  remained  the  absolute  chief 
oi  his  tribe,  or  of  his  ysro;.  Theseus  could  not  destroy 
an  authority  which  religion  had  established,  and  which 
it  rendered  inviolable.  Still  further,  if  we  examine  the 
traditions  which  relate  to  this  epoch,  we  shall  see  that 
these  powerful  Eupatrids  agreed  to  associate  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  city  only  after  stipulating  that 
the  government  should  be  really  federative,  and  that 
each  one  of  themselves  should  have  a  part  in  it.  There 
was,  indeed,  a  supreme  king  ;  but  as  soon  as  the  com¬ 
mon  interest  was  at  stake,  the  assembly  of  the  chiefs 
was  convoked,  and  nothing  of  importance  could  be 
done  without  the  consent  of  this  species  of  a  senate. 

These  traditions,  in  the  language  of  succeeding  gen¬ 
erations,  were  expressed  somewhat  after  this  manner: 
“Theseus  changed  the  government  of  Athens  from  a 
monarchy  to  a  republic.”  This  is  the  account  of  Aris¬ 
totle,  Isocrates,  Demosthenes,  and  Plutarch.  In  this 
somewhat  deceptive  statement  there  is  a  foundation  of 
truth.  Theseus  did,  indeed,  as  tradition  says,  “restore 
the  sovereign  authority  to  the  hands  of  the  people.” 
Only  the  word  people,  <%/oç,  which  the  tradition  has 
preserved,  had  not,  in  the  time  of  Theseus,  so  extended 


CHAP.  III. 


THE  FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


821 


an  application  as  it  had  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes 
This  people,  or  political  body,  was  then  no  other  than 
an  aristocracy  — that  is  to  say,  the  entire  body  of  the 
chiefs  of  the  yêvrj. 

Theseus,  in  establishing  this  assembly,  was  not  neces¬ 
sarily  an  innovator.  But  in  spite  of  him  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  the  great  Athenian  unity  changed  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  the  government.  As  soon  as  these  Eupatrids, 
whose  authority  remained  intact  in  the  families,  were 
united  in  the  same  city,  they  formed  a  powerful  body, 
which  had  its  rights,  and  might  make  its  claims.  The 
king  of  the  little  rock  of  Cecrops  became  the  king  of 
all  Attica  ;  but  instead  of  being,  as  in  his  little  village,  an 
absolute  king,  he  was  now  only  the  chief  of  a  federative 
state — that  is  to  say,  the  first  among  equals.  A  con¬ 
flict  between  this  aristocracy  and  royalty  could  not  be 
long  delayed.  “The  Eupatrids  regretted  the  really 
royal  power  which  each  one  of  them  had  previously 
exercised  in  his  village.  It  appears  that  these  war¬ 
rior  priests  placed  religion  in  the  front  rank,  and  pre¬ 
tended  that  the  authority  of  the  local  worships  had 
been  diminished.  If  it  is  true,  as  Thucydides  says,  that 
Theseus  attempted  to  destroy  the  prytanea  of  the  vil¬ 
lages,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  religious  sentiment 
was  aroused  against  him.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how 
many  contests  he  had  to  sustain,  how  many  risings  he 
had  to  repress,  by  address  or  by  force.  What  is  cer¬ 
tain  is,  that  he  was  finally  vanquished  ;  that  he  was 
driven  from  Athens,  and  died  in  exile. 

The  Eupatrids  then  had  full  sway  ;  they  did  not 
suppress  royalty,  but  they  set  up  a  king  of  their  choice, 
Mencstheus.  After  him,  the  family  of  Theseus  recov¬ 
ered  the  power,  and  held  it  during  three  generations. 
It  was  then  replaced  by  another  family  —  that  of  the 

21 


322 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


Melanthidæ.  This  whole  period  must  have  been  very 
unquiet;  but  no  definite  account  of  the  civil  wars  has 
been  preserved. 

The  death  of  Codrus  coincides  with  the  final  victory 
of  the  Eupatrids.  They  did  not  yet  suppress  royalty, 
for  their  religious  notions  forbade  this  ;  but  they  took 
away  its  political  power.  The  traveller  Pausanias, 
who  lived  long  after  these  events,  but  who  carefully 
consulted  the  traditions,  says  that  royalty  then  lost  a 
great  part  of  its  attributes,  and  “became  dependent,” 
which  signifies,  doubtless,  that  it  was  thenceforth  sub¬ 
ordinate  to  the  senate  of  the  Eupatrids.  Modern  histo¬ 
rians  call  this  period  of  Athenian  history  that  of  the 
archonships,  and  rarely  fail  to  say  that  royalty  was 
then  abolished.  But  this  is  not  strictly  true.  The 
descendants  of  Codrus  succeeded  each  other  from 
father  to  son  during  thirteen  generations.  They  had 
the  title  of  archon,  but  there  are  ancient  documents 
which  give  them  also  that  of  king,1  and  we  have 
already  said  that  these  two  titles  were  exactly  synony¬ 
mous.  Athens,  therefore,  during  this  long  period,  still 
had  hereditary  kings;  but  it  had  taken  away  their 
power,  and  had  left  them  only  the  religious  functions. 
This  is  what  had  been  done  at  Sparta. 

At  the  end  of  three  centuries,  the  Eupatrids  found 
that  this  religious  royalty  was  still  more  powerful  than 
they  desired,  and  they  weakened  it  still  more.  They 
decided  that  the  same  man  should  not  be  clothed  with 
this  high  sacerdotal  dignity  for  more  than  ten  years 
But  they  continued  to  believe  that  the  ancient  royal 
family  was  alone  qualified  to  fill  the  office  of  archon.* 

1  See  Parian  Marbles ,  and  Comp.  Pausanias,  I.  3,  2;  VII.  2, 
l  ;  Plato,  Menexenes ,  p.  238,  c.  ;  Ælian,  V.  H.y  V.  13. 

*  Pausanias,  IV.  3. 


CHAI».  ITÏ. 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


323 


About  forty  years  passed  thus.  But  one  day  the 
royal  family  was  stained  with  a  crime,  and  men  thought 
it  could  no  longer  fill  the  priestly  office;  1  that  thence¬ 
forth  the  archons  should  be  chosen  outside  this  family, 
and  that  this  dignity  should  be  accessible  to  all  the 
Eupatrids.  Forty  years  later,  in  order  to  enfeeble  this 
royalty,  or  to  distribute  it  into  more  hands,  they  made 
it  annual,  and  divided  it  into  two  distinct  magistracies. 
Up  to  that  time  the  archon  was  at  the  same  time  king; 
but  thenceforth  these  two  titles  were  separated.  A  mag¬ 
istrate  called  an  archon,  and  another  magistrate  called 
a  king,  shared  the  attributes  of  the  ancient  religious 
royalty.  The  duty  of  watching  over  the  perpetuation 
of  families,  of  authorizing  or  forbidding  adoption,  of 
receiving  wills,  of  deciding  questions  relating  to  real 
property  —  everything  in  which  religion  was  interest¬ 
ed  —  devolved  upon  the  archon.  The  duty  of  offering 
the  solemn  sacrifices,  and  that  of  judging  cases  of 
impiety,  were  reserved  to  the  kings.  Thus  the  title 
of  king  —  a  sacred  title,  which  was  necessary  to  religion 
—  was  perpetuated  in  the  city  with  the  sacrifices  and 
the  national  worship.  The  king  and  the  archon,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  polemarch  and  the  six  thesmothetæ, 
who  had  perhaps  existed  for  a  long  time,  completed 
the  number  of  nine  annual  magistrates,  whom  it  was 
the  custom  to  call  the  nine  archons,  from  the  name  of 
the  first  among  them. 

The  revolution  that  took  from  royalty  its  political 
power,  was  carried  through  under  different  forms  in  all 
the  cities.  At  Argos,  from  the  second  generation  of 
Dorian  kings,  royalty  was  so  weakened  “that  there  was 

1  Heracleides  of  Pontus,  I.  8.  Nicholas  of  Damascus,  Fragm. 
51. 


324 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


left  to  the  descendants  of  Temenus  only  the  name  of 
king,  without  any  power;”  still  this  royalty  remained 
hereditary  during  several  centuries.1  At  Cyrene  the 
descendants  of  Battus  at  first  united  in  their  hands  the 
priesthood  and  the  political  power;  but  after  the  fourth 
generation  nothing  was  left  them  but  the  priesthood.* 
At  Corinth  royalty  was  at  first  transmitted  heredita¬ 
rily  in  the  family  of  the  Bacchidæ.  The  effect  of  the 
revolution  was  to  render  the  office  annual,  but  without 
taking  it  from  this  family,  whose  members  held  it  by 
turns  for  a  century. 

4.  The  same  Revolution  at  Rome . 

At  first,  royalty  was  at  Rome  what  it  had  been  in 
Greece.  The  king  was  the  high  priest  of  the  city;  he 
was  at  the  same  time  the  supreme  judge;  he  also  com¬ 
manded  the  armed  citizens.  Next  to  him  were  the 
patres,  who  formed  a  senate.  There  was  but  one  king, 
se  i  elision  enjoined  unity  in  the  priesthood  and 
unity  in  the  government.  But  it  was  understood  that 
on  all  important  affairs  the  king  must  consult  the  heads 
of  the  confederated  families.3  From  this  time  histo¬ 
rians  mention  an  assembly  of  the  people.  But  we 
must  inquire  what  was  then  the  meaning  of  the  word 
people  ( populus ),  that  is  to  say,  what  was  the  body 
politic  in  the  t  ime  of  the  first  kings.  All  the  witnesses 
agree  that  the  people  always  assembled  by  curies  ;  now 
the  curies  were  the  collection  of  the  gentes  ;  every 
gens  repaired  there  in  a  body,  and  had  but  one  vote 
The  clients  were  there,  ranged  round  the  patei,  con 

*  Pausanias,  II.  19. 

*  Herodotus,  IV.  161.  Diodorus,  VIII, 

*  Cicero,  De  Repub.,  II.  8. 


en  AF.  m 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


325 


suited  perhaps,  perhaps  giving  their  advice,  contribut¬ 
ing  towards  the  single  vote  which  the  gens  cast,  but 
with  no  power  to  give  an  opinion  contrary  to  that 
of  the  pater.  This  assembly  of  the  curies  was,  then, 
nothing  but  the  patrician  city  united  in  presence  of  the 
kings. 

By  this  we  see  that  Rome  was  in  the  same  state  as 
the  other  cities.  The  king  was  in  the  presence  of  an 
aristocratic  body  very  strongly  organized,  and  which 
derived  its  power  from  religion.  The  same  conflicts 
which  we  have  seen  in  Greece,  therefore,  took  place  in 
Rome.  The  history  of  the  seven  kings  is  the  history 
of  this  long  quarrel.  The  first  wished  to  increase  his 
power  and  free  himself  from  the  authority  of  the  sen¬ 
ate.  He  sought  the  favor  of  the  inferior  classes,  but 
the  Fathers  were  hostile  to  him  ;  and  he  perished,  as¬ 
sassinated  in  an  assembly  of  the  senate. 

The  aristocracy  immediately  dream  of  abolishing 
royalty,  and  the  Fathers  fill  by  turns  the  place  of  the 
king.  The  lower  classes  are  agitated,  it  is  true;  they 
do  not  wish  to  be  governed  by  the  chiefs  of  the  gentes, 
and  demand  the  restoration  of  royalty.1  But  the  patri¬ 
cians  satisfy  themselves  by  deciding  that  henceforth  it 
shall  be  elective,  and  they  fix  the  forms  of  election  with 
marvellous  skill.  The  senate  must  choose  the  candi¬ 
date  ;  the  patrician  assembly  of  the  curies  must  con¬ 
firm  this  choice;  and,  finally,  the  patrician  augurs  must 
declare  whether  this  newly-elected  king  is  pleasing  to 
the  gods. 

Numa  was  elected  according  to  these  rules.  He  was 
very  religious  —  rather  a  priest  than  a  warrior,  a  very 
scrupulous  observer  of  all  the  rites  of  worship,  and 


1  Livy,  I.  Cicero,  De  Repub. ,  II. 


326 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


consequently  very  strongly  attached  to  the  religious 
constitution  of  the  families  and  the  city.  He  was  a 
king  after  the  hearts  of  the  patricians,  and  died  peacea¬ 
bly  in  his  bed. 

It  should  seem  that,  under  Numa,  royalty  had  been 
reduced  to  its  priestly  functions,  as  it  had  been  in  the 
Greek  cities.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  the  religious 
authority  of  the  king  was  entirely  distinct  from  his 
political,  and  that  one  did  not  necessarily  accompany 
the  other.  What  proves  this  is,  that  there  was  a 
double  election.  By  virtue  of  the  first,  the  king  was 
merely  a  religious  chief  ;  if  to  this  dignity  he  wished  to 
join  the  political  power,  imperium ,  it  was  necessary 
that  the  city  should  confer  it  upon  him  by  a  special 
decree.  This  conclusion  follows  clearly  from  what 
Cicero  has  told  us  of  the  ancient  constitution.  Thus 
the  priesthood  and  the  political  power  were  distinct  ; 
they  might  be  placed  in  the  same  hands,  but  for  that 
two  comitia  and  a  double  election  were  necessary. 

The  third  king  certainly  united  them  in  his  own 
hands.  He  held  both  the  priestly  office  and  the  com¬ 
mand  ;  he  was  even  more  warrior  than  priest  ;  he 
neglected,  and  wished  to  diminish,  the  religious  element, 
the  strength  of  the  aristocracy.  We  see  him  welcome 
a  multitude  of  strangers  to  Rome,  in  spite  of  the  reli¬ 
gious  principle  which  excluded  them;  he  even  dared  to 
live  in  the  midst  of  them  on  the  Cælian  Hill.  We  also 
see  him  distribute  to  plebeians  lands,  the  revenue  of 
which,  up  to  that  time,  had  been  appropriated  to  de¬ 
fraying  the  expenses  of  the  sacrifices.  The  patricians 
accused  him  of  having  neglected  the  rites,  and,  what 
was  even  worse,  of  having  modified  and  altered  them. 
And  so  he  died  like  Romulus  ;  the  gods  of  the  patricians 
destroyed  him  and  his  sons  with  a  thunderbolt.  Thi# 


CHAP.  HI. 


FIRST.  REVOLUTION. 


327 


event  restored  the  supremacy  to  the  senate,  which  set 
up  a  king  of  its  own  choice.  Ancus  scrupulously  ob¬ 
served  all  the  religious  rites,  made  war  as  seldom  as 
possible,  and  passed  his  life  in  the  temples.  Dear  to 
the  patricians,  he  died  in  his  bed. 

The  fifth  king  was  Tarquin,  who  obtained  the  throne 
in  spite  of  the  senate,  and  by  the  help  of  the  lower 
Classes.  He  was  troubled  little  with  religious  scruples  ; 
indeed,  he  was  very  incredulous  ;  nothing  less  than  a 
miracle  could  convince  him  of  the  science  of  the  augurs. 
He  was  an  enemy  of  the  ancient  families  ;  he  created 
patricians,  and  changed  the  old  religious  constitution 
of  the  city  as  much  as  possible.  Tarquin  was  assassi¬ 
nated. 

The  sixth  king  gained  possession  of  the  throne  by 
stratagem  :  it  should  seem,  indeed,  that  the  senate 
never  recognized  him  as  a  legitimate  king.  He  flat¬ 
tered  the  lower  classes,  distributed  lands  among  them 
without  regard  to  the  rights  of  property,  and  even  con¬ 
ferred  political  rights  upon  them.  Servius  was  mur¬ 
dered  on  the  steps  of  the  senate  house. 

The  quarrel  between  the  kings  and  the  aristocracy 
assumed  the  character  of  a  social  struggle.  The  kings 
sided  with  the  people,  and  depended  for  support  upon 
the  clients  and  the  plebs.  To  the  patrician  order,  so 
powerfully  organized,  they  opposed  the  lower  classes, 
so  numerous  at  Rome.  The  aristocracy  then  found 
itself  threatened  by  a  double  peril,  the  worst  of  which 
was  not  the  necessity  of  giving  way  before  royalty.  It 
saw  rising  in  its  rear  the  classes  that  it  despised.  It 
saw  the  plebs  organizing,  a  class  without  religion  and 
without  a  sacred  fire.  It  saw  itself  in  danger  of  being 
attacked  by  its  clients,  within  the  family  itself  whose 
constitution,  rights,  and  religion  were  discussed  and 


328 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


jeopardized.  In  the  eyes  of  the  aristocracy,  therefore, 
the  kings  were  odious  enemies,  who,  to  augment  then 
own  power,  were  planning  to  overthrow  the  sacred 
organization  of  the  family  and  of  the  city. 

The  second  Tarquin  succeeded  Servius  ;  he  disap¬ 
pointed  the  hopes  of  the  senators  who  had  elected  him, 
and  wished  to  be  master  —  de  rege  dominus  exstitit.  He 
weakened  the  patricians  to  the  extent  of  his  power; 
he  struck  off  the  highest  heads;  reigned  without  con¬ 
sulting  the  Fathers,  and  made  war  and  peace  without 
asking  their  approval.  The  patricians  seemed  com¬ 
pletely  subdued. 

Finally,  an  occasion  presented  itself.  Tarquin  was 
far  from  Rome  ;  his  army  —  that  is  to  say,  his  support  — 
was  also  away.  The  city  was,  for  a  time,  in  the  hands 
of  the  patricians.  The  prefect  of  the  city  —  that  is 
to  say,  the  one  who  held  the  civil  power  during  the 
absence  of  the  king —  was  a  patrician,  Lucretius.  The 
commander  of  the  cavalry  —  that  is  to  say,  the  one 
whose  military  authority  was  next  to  that  of  the  king 
—  was  a  patrician,  Junius.1  These  two  men  prepared 
the  insurrection.  They  had,  as  associates,  other  pa¬ 
tricians,  Valerius  and  Tarquinius  Collatinus.  The 
place  of  meeting  was  not  at  Rome,  but  at  the  little 
city  of  Collatia,  which  was  the  property  of  one  of  the 
conspirators.  There  they  showed  the  people  the  body 
of  a  woman  ;  they  said  this  woman  had  taken  her  own 
life  as  a  punishment  for  the  crime  of  a  son  of  the  king. 
The  people  of  Collatia  revolt  and  move  on  to  Rome 
there  the  same  scene  is  renewed.  Men  are  taken  by 
surprise  ;  the  king’s  partisans  are  disconcerted,  and  be¬ 
sides,  at  this  very  moment,  the  legal  power  in  Rome 
belongs  to  Junius  and  Lucretius. 

1  The  Junian  family  was  patrician.  Dionysius,  IV.  68 


s 


CHAP.  III. 


FIRST  REVOLUTION. 


829 


The  conspirators  take  good  care  net  to  assemble  the 
people,  but  to  repair  to  the  senate  house.  The  senate 
declares  Tarquin  dethroned  and  royalty  abolished.  But 
the  decree  of  the  senate  must  be  confirmed  by  the  city. 
Lucretius,  as  prefect  of  the  city,  has  the  right  to  con¬ 
voke  the  assembly.  The  curies  are  assembled,  and  they 
agree  with  the  conspirators;  they  declare  for  the  dep¬ 
osition  of  Tarquin,  and  the  creation  of  two  consuls. 

This  principal  point  being  decided,  they  leave  the 
nomination  of  the  consuls  to  the  assembly  by  centuries. 
But  will  not  this  assembly,  in  which  some  plebeians 
vote,  protest  against  what  the  patricians  have  done  in 
the  senate  and  the  curies?  It  cannot.  For  every 
Roman  assembly  is  presided  over  by  a  magistrate,  who 
states  the  object  of  the  vote,  and  no  other  question  can 
come  up  for  deliberation.  More  than  this,  none  but 
the  president  at  this  period  has  the  right  to  speak. 
If  a  law'  is  to  be  voted  upon,  the  centuries  can  vote 
only  yes  or  no.  If  it  is  an  election,  the  president  pre¬ 
sents  the  candidates,  and  no  candidate  except  those 
presented  can  be  voted  for.  In  the  present  case,  the 
president  appointed  by  the  senate  is  Lucretius,  one  of 
the  conspirators.  He  states  that  the  only  object  of  the 
meeting  is  the  election  of  two  consuls.  He  presents 
two  names,  those  of  Junius  and  Tarquinius  Collatinus, 
as  candidates  for  the  office.  These  twTo  men  are  neces¬ 
sarily  elected.  The  senate  now  ratify  the  election,  and 
lastly  the  augurs  confirm  it  in  the  name  of  the  gods. 

This  revolution  did  not  please  every  body  at  Rome. 
Many  plebeians  joined  the  king,  and  followed  his  for¬ 
tunes.  On  the  other  hand,  a  rich  Sabine  patrician,  the 
powerful  chief  of  a  numerous  gens,  the  haughty  Attus 
Clauses,  found  the  new  government  so  much  to  his  taste 
that  he  came  to  Rome  to  live. 


330 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


ROOK  IV. 


Still  it  was  political  royalty  only  that  was  suppressed  : 
religious  royalty  was  sacred,  and  must  endure.  There 
fore  men  hastened  to  name  a  king,  but  one  who  was 
king  only  for  the  sacrifices  —  rex  sacrorum.  All  im¬ 
aginable  precautions  were  taken  that  this  king-priest 
should  never  take  advantage  of  the  great  prestige 
which  his  office  gave  him,  and  seize  upon  the  civi' 
power. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Aristocracy  governs  the  City. 

The  same  revolution,  under  forms  slightly  varied, 
took  place  at  Athens,  at  Sparta,  at  Rome,  in  all  the 
cities,  in  fine,  whose  history  is  known  to  us.  Every¬ 
where  it  was  the  work  of  the  aristocracy;  everywhere 
it  resulted  in  suppressing  political  royalty  and  con¬ 
tinuing  religious  royalty.  From  this  epoch,  during  a 
period  whose  duration  was  very  unequal  in  different 
cities,  the  government  of  the  city  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  aristocracy. 

This  aristocracy  rested  at  the  same  time  on  birth  and 
religion.  It  had  its  foundation-  in  the  religious  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  family.  It  originated  in  the  same  rules 
that  we  have  noticed  above,  in  the  domestic  worship 
and  in  private  law — that  is  to  say,  the  law  of  the 
hereditary  descent  of  the  sacred  fire,  the  right  of  pri¬ 
mogeniture,  and  the  right  of  pronouncing  the  prayers, 
which  was  the  prerogative  of  birth.  An  hereditary 
religion  was  the  title  of  this  aristocracy  to  absolute 
dominion,  and  gave  it  rights  that  appeared  sacred. 
According  to  ancient  ideas,  he  alone  could  be  an  ownei 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  ARISTOCRACY  GOVERNS. 


331 


of  land  who  had  a  domestic  worship;  he  alone  was  a 
member  of  the  city  who  embodied  the  religious  char¬ 
acter  which  constituted  the  citizen  ;  he  alone  could  be 
a  Driest  who  was  a  descendant  of  a  family  having  a  wor¬ 
ship  ;  he  alone  could  be  a  magistrate  who  had  the  right 
to  offer  the  sacrifices.  A  man  who  had  no  hereditary 
worship  might  be  the  client  of  another  man  ;  or,  if  he 
preferred  it,  he  could  remain  without  the  pale  of  all  soci¬ 
ety.  For  many  generations  it  did  not  enter  the  minds 
of  men  that  this  inequality  was  unjust.  No  one  had 
thought  of  establishing  human  society  upon  any  other 
principles. 

At  Athens,  from  the  death  of  Codrus  to  the  time  of 
Solon,  all  authority  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Eupatrids. 
They  alone  were  priests  and  archons.  They  alone  acted 
as  judges,  and  knew  the  laws,  which  were  not  written, 
and  whose  sacred  formulas  were  transmitted  from 
father  to  son. 

These  families  preserved  as  much  as  possible  the  an¬ 
cient  forms  of  the  patriarchal  régime.  They  did  not 
live  united  in  the  city,  but  continued  to  live  in  the 
various  cantons  of  Attica,  each  on  its  vast  domain, 
surrounded  by  its  numerous  servants,  governed  by  its 
Eupatrid  chief,  and  practising  its  hereditary  worship 
in  absolute  independence.1  During  four  centuries  the 
Athenian  city  was  merely  a  confederation  of  these 
powerful  heads  of  families,  who  assembled  on  certain 
days  for  the  celebration  of  the  central  worshij),  or  for 
the  pursuit  of  common  interests. 

Men  have  often  remarked  how  mute  history  is  re¬ 
garding  this  long  period  in  the  life  of  Athens,  and  in 
general  in  the  life  of  Greek  cities.  They  are  surprised 


1  Thucydides,  II.  15, 16. 


832 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


that,  when  it  has  preserved  the  memory  of  so  many 
events  from  the  times  of  the  ancient  kings,  it  has  re¬ 
corded  so  few  of  the  time  of  the  aristocratic  govern¬ 
ments.  The  reason  is  doubtless  because  at  that  time 
very  few  acts  of  general  interest  took  place.  The  re¬ 
turn  of  the  patriarchal  régime  had  almost  suspended 
the  national  life.  Men  lived  apart,  and  had  few  com¬ 
mon  interests.  The  horizon  of  each  one  was  the  small 
group  and  the  small  hamlet  where  he  lived,  as  Eupatrid 
or  as  servant. 

At  Rome,  too,  each  patrician  family  lived  upon  its 
estate,  surrounded  by  its  clients.  Men  came  to  the  city 
to  celebrate  the  festivals  of  the  public  worship,  and  for 
the  public  assemblies.  During  the  years  that  followed 
the  expulsion  of  the  kings,  the  power  of  the  aristocracy 
was  absolute.  None  but  a  patrician  could  fill  the 
priestly  office  in  the  city  ;  the  vestals,  the  pontiffs,  the 
salii,  the  flam  en  s,  and  the  augurs,  were  chosen  exclu¬ 
sively  from  the  sacred  caste.  Patricians  alone  could 
be  consuls  ;  they  alone  composed  the  senate.  Though 
they  did  not  suppress  the  assembly  by  centuries,  to 
which  the  plebeians  had  access,  they  at  any  rate  re¬ 
garded  the  assembly  by  curies  as  the  only  one  that  was 
legitimate  and  sacred.  The  centuries  had,  in  appear¬ 
ance,  the  election  of  the  consuls;  but  we  have  seen 
that  they  could  vote  only  on  the  names  that  the  pa¬ 
tricians  presented,  and,  besides,  their  decisions  were 
submitted  to  the  triple  ratification  of  the  senate,  the 
curies,  and  the  augurs.  Patricians  alone  administered 
justice,  and  knew  the  forms  of  the  law. 

This  political  system  lasted  at  Rome  only  a  few 
years.  Tn  Greece,  on  the  contrary,  there  was  a  long 
period  during  which  the  aristocracy  was  master.  The 
Odyssey  presents  us  with  a  faithful  picture  of  this 


s 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  ARISTOCRACY  GOVERNS. 


S33 


social  state  in  the  western  portion  of  Greece.  We  see 
there  a  patriarchal  regime  strongly  resembling  what 
we  have  remarked  in  Attica.  A  few  great  and  rich 
families  own  the  whole  country.  Numerous  slaves  cul¬ 
tivate  the  soil,  or  tend  the  flocks;  the  manner  of  living 
is  simple  —  a  single  table  suffices  for  the  chief  and 
the  servants.  These  chiefs  are  called  by  a  name  which 
becomes,  under  other  circumstances,  a  pompous  title  — 
àruxitÇ)  [Ïuadeïç.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  Athenians 
of  primitive  times  gave  the  chief  of  the  yèroç  the  title 
of  pcunleüç,  and  that  at  Rome  the  clients  preserved 
the  custom  of  calling  the  chief  of  the  gens  rex.  These 
heads  of  families  have  a  sacred  character  ;  the  poet 
calls  them  divine  kings.  Ithaca  is  very  small,  yet  it 
contains  a  great  number  of  these  kings.  Among  them 
there  is  indeed  a  supreme  king;  but  he  is  of  little  im¬ 
portance,  and  appears  to  have  no  other  prerogative 
than  that  of  presiding  at  the  council  of  the  chiefs.  It 
appears,  even,  from  certain  indications,  that  this  office 
is  elective,  and  it  is  clear  the  Telemachus  will  not  be 
the  supreme  chief  of  the  isle,  unless  the  other  chiefs, 
his  equals,  wish  to  elect  him.  Ulysses,  returning  to 
his  country,  appears  to  have  no  other  subjects  than  the 
servants  who  belong  to  him  personally.  When  he  has 
slain  some  of  the  chiefs,  their  servants  take  up  arms 
and  sustain  a  contest  which  the  poet  does  not  think 
blameworthy.  Among  the  Phæacians,  Alcinous  has 
supreme  authority  ;  but  we  see  him  repair  to  an  assem¬ 
bly  of  the  chiefs  ;  and  we  may  remark  that  he  does 
not  convoke  the  council,  but  that  the  council  summons 
the  king.  The  poet  describes  an  assembly  of  the  Phæa- 
cian  city.  It  is  far  from  being  an  assembly  of  the  mul¬ 
titude;  the  chiefs  alone,  individually  convoked  by  a 
herald,  as  at  Rome  for  the  comitict  coil&tci ,  assemble , 


334 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


they  occupy  seats  of  stone;  the  king  makes  an  address, 
and  calls  his  auditors  sceptre-bearing  kings. 

In  Hesiod’s  city,  the  rocky  Ascra,  we  find  a  class  of 
men  whom  the  poet  calls  the  chiefs,  or  kings.  They 
are  those  who  administer  justice  to  the  people.  Pin¬ 
dar  also  shows  us  a  class  of  chiefs  among  the  Cadmæ- 
ans  ;  at  Thebes  he  extols  the  sacred  race  of  the  Sparti, 
from  which,  at  a  later  date,  Epaminondas  derives  his 
descent.  We  can  hardly  read  Pindar  without  being 
struck  with  the  aristocratic  spirit  which  still  reigned  in 
Greek  society  in  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars.  From 
this  we  may  imagine  how  powerful  the  aristocracy  was 
a  century  or  two  earlier.  For  what  the  poet  boasts 
of  the  most  in  his  heroes,  is  their  family;  and  we  must 
suppose  that  this  sort  of  praise  was  at  that  time  highly 
valued,  and  that  birth  still  seemed  the  supreme  good. 
Pindar  shows  us  the  great  families  which  were  then 
conspicuous  in  each  city  ;  in  the  single  city  of  Ægina 
he  names  the  Midylidæ,  the  Theandridæ,  the  Euxenidæ, 
the  Blepsiadæ,  the  Chariadæ,  the  Balychidae.  At  Syra¬ 
cuse  he  extols  a  priestly  family  of  the  Iamidae  ;  at  Ag- 
rigentum,  that  of  the  Emmenidæ,  and  so  on  for  all  the 
cities  of  which  he  has  occasion  to  speak. 

At  Epidaurus,  the  entire  body  of  the  citizens  —  that 
is  to  say,  ol  those  who  had  political  rights —  was  for  a 
long  time  composed  of  no  more  than  one  hundred  and 
eighty  members.  All  the  rest  “  were  outside  the 
city.”  1  The  real  citizens  were  still  fewer  at  Heraclea, 
where  the  younger  members  of  the  great  families  had 
no  political  rights.2  The  case  was  a  long  time  the 
same  at  Cnidus,  at  Istros,  and  at  Marseilles.  At  Thera 

1  Plutarch,  Gr.  Quest.,  I. 

*  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  5,  2. 


CHAP.  IV. 


THE  ARISTOCRACY  GOVERNS. 


335 


all  the  power  was  in  the  hands  of  a  few  families  which 
were  reputed  sacred.  It  was  the  same  at  Apollonia.' 

At  Erythræ  there  was  an  aristocratic  class  called  the 
Basilidae.  In  the  cities  of  Euboea  the  ruling  class 
were  called  the  knights.1 2  We  may  remark  here  that 
among  the  ancients,  as  in  the  middle  ages,  it  was  a 
privilege  to  fight  on  horseback. 

The  monarchy  had  already  ceased  to  exist  at  Corinth 
when  a  colony  set  out  from  there  to  found  Sj  racuse. 
The  new  city,  therefore,  knew  nothing  of  royalty,  and 
was  ruled  from  the  first  by  an  aristocracy.  This  class 
was  called  Geomori,  that  is  to  say,  proprietors.  It  was 
ocmposed  of  families  which,  on  the  day  of  the  founda¬ 
tion,  had  distributed  among  themselves,  with  all  the 
ordinary  rites,  the  sacred  parts  of  the  territory.  This 
aristocracy  remained  for  several  generations  absolute 
master  of  the  government,  and  it  preserved  its  title 
of  proprietors ,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  the  lower 
classes  had  not  the  right  of  property  in  the  soil.  An 
aristocracy  of  the  same  kind  ruled  for  a  long  time  at 
Miletus  and  at  Samos.3 

1  Aristotle,  Politicsy  III.  9,  8  ;  VI.  3,  8. 

*  Aristotle,  Politics,  VIII.  5,  10. 

3  Diodorus,  VIII.  5.  Thucydides,  VIII.  21.  Herodotus,  VII 

155. 


336 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Second  Revolution.  Change  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
Family.  The  Right  of  Birth  disappears.  The  Gens 
is  dismembered. 

The  revolution  which  had  overturned  royalty  had 
modified  the  exterior  form  of  the  government  rather 
than  changed  the  constitution  of  society.  It  had  not 
bee;,  the  work  of  the  lower  classes,  who  had  an  interest 
in  destroying  the  old  institutions,  but  of  the  aristocracy, 
who  wished  to  maintain  them.  It  had  not  been  under¬ 
taken  in  order  to  overturn  the  ancient  constitution  of 
the  family,  but  rather  to  preserve  it.  The  kings  had 
often  been  tempted  to  elevate  the  inferior  classes  and 
to  weaken  the  gentes,  and  for  this  the  kings  themselves 
had  been  dethroned.  The  aristocracy  had  brought 
about  a  political  revolution  only  to  prevent  a  social 
one.  They  had  taken  the  power  in  hand,  less  from  the 
pleasure  of  ruling  than  to  protect  their  old  institutions, 
their  ancient  principles,  their  domestic  worship,  their 
paternal  authority,  the  régime  of  the  gens  —  in  fine, 
the  private  law  which  the  primitive  religion  had  estab¬ 
lished. 

This  great  and  general  effort  of  the  aristocracy  was 
to  meet  a  danger.  Now,  it  appears  that,  in  spite  of 
these  efforts,  and  of  the  victory  itself  the  danger  con¬ 
tinued.  The  old  institutions  began  to  totter,  and 
grave  changes  were  about  to  be  introduced  into  the 
inner  constitution  of  the  family.  The  old  rule  of  the 
gens,  founded  by  the  domestic  religion,  had  not  been 
destroyed  at  the  time  when  men  passed  to  the  gov- 


CHAP.  V. 


THE  GENS  IS  DISMEMBERED. 


337 


ernment  of  the  city.  They  had  not  wished,  they  had 
not  been  able,  immediately  to  renounce  it,  as  the  chiefs 
clung  to  their  authority,  and  the  lower  classes  had  not 
at  first  the  desire  to  free  themselves.  The  rule  of 
the  gens  was  therefore  reconciled  with  that  of  the  city. 
But  these  were  in  reality  two  antagonistic  forms  of 
government,  which  men  could  not  hope  to  ally  forever, 
and  which  must  sooner  or  later  be  at  war  with  each 
other.  The  family,  indivisible  and  numerous,  was  too 
strong  and  too  independent  for  the  social  power  not  to 
feel  the  temptation,  and  even  the  need,  of  weakening 
it.  Either  the  city  could  not  last,  or  it  must  in  the 
course  of  time  break  up  the  family. 

The  ancient  gens,  with  its  single  hearth,  its  sovereign 
chief,  and  its  indivisible  domain,  was  a  convenient  ar¬ 
rangement  so  long  as  the  state  of  isolation  continued, 
and  no  other  form  of  society  than  itself  existed.  But 
as  soon  as  men  were  united  in  cities,  the  authority  of 
the  ancient  chief  was  necessarily  diminished;  for 
though  he  was  sovereign  in  his  own  gens,  he  was  a 
member  of  a  community  ;  as  such,  the  general  interests 
obliged  him  to  make  sacrifices,  and  general  laws  com¬ 
manded  obedience.  In  his  own  eyes,  and,  above  all. 
in  the  eyes  of  his  inferiors,  his  dignity  was  impaired. 
Then,  in  this  community,  aristocratically  as  it  was  con¬ 
stituted,  the  lower  classes  counted  for  something,  if 
only  on  account  of  their  numbers.  The  family  which 
comprised  several  branches,  and  which  attended  the 
comitia,  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  clients,  naturally 
had  greater  authority  in  the  general  deliberations  than 
a  small  family  that  counted  few  hands  and  few  sol¬ 
diers.  Now,  these  inferiors  were  not  slow  to  see  their 
importance  and  strength.  A  certain  sentiment  of 
pride,  and  the  desire  for  a  better  fate,  grew  up  among 

22 


338 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


them.  Added  to  this  was  the  rivalry  of  the  heads  of 
families  striving  for  influence  and  seeking  mutually  to 
weaken  each  othc*  .  Then,  too,  they  were  ambitious 
of  the  magistracies  of  the  city.  To  obtain  these  the}’ 
sought  popularity,  and  to  hold  them,  they  neglected  or 
forgot  their  little  sovereignties.  These  causes  pro¬ 
duced  by  degrees  a  sort  of  relaxation  in  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  gens  ;  those  for  whose  interest  it  was  to 
maintain  this  constitution  held  to  it  less,  while  those 
who  had  an  interest  in  modifying  it  became  bolder 
and  stronger. 

The  force  of  individuality,  at  first  strong  in  the  fam¬ 
ily,  insensibly  became  weaker.  The  right  of  primogen¬ 
iture,  which  was  the  condition  of  its  unity,  disappeared. 
We  ought  not  to  expect  that  any  writer  of  antiquity 
should  furnish  us  the  exact  date  of  this  great  change. 
It  is  probable  that  there  was  no  date,  because  the 
change  did  not  take  place  in  a  year.  It  was  effected 
by  degrees  —  at  first  in  one  family,  then  in  another, 
and  little  by  little  in  all.  It  happened,  so  to  speak, 
without  any  one’s  perceiving  it. 

We  can  easily  perceive,  also,  that  men  did  not  pass 
at  once  from  the  indivisibility  of  the  patrimony  to  the 
equal  division  among  the  brothers.  There  was  appar¬ 
ently  a  transition  period  between  these  two  conditions 
of  property.  Affairs  probably  took  the  same  course  in 
Greece  and  Italy  as  in  ancient  Hindu  society,  where 
the  religious  law  after  having  prescribed  the  indivisi¬ 
bility  of  the  patrimony,  left  the  father  free  to  give 
some  portion  of  it  to  his  younger  sons;  then,  after 
having  required  that  the  oldest  should  have  at  least  a 
double  portion,  permitted  the  apportionment  to  be 
equal,  and  finished  by  recommending  this  arrange 
m«nt. 


CHAP.  y. 


THE  GENS  IS  DISMEMBERED. 


339 


But  we  have  no  precise  information  upon  these 
points.  A  single  fact  is  certain  —  that  the  right  of  pri¬ 
mogeniture  existed  at  an  ancient  epoch,  and  that  after¬ 
wards  it  disappeared. 

This  change  was  not  accomplished  at  the  same  time, 
nor  in  the  same  manner,  in  all  the  cities.  In  some 
legislation  maintained  it  for  a  long  time.  At  Thebes 
and  at  Corinth  it  was  still  in  vigor  in  the  eighth  century. 
At  Athens  legislation  still  showed  some  preference  for 
the  oldest.  At  Sparta  the  right  of  primogeniture  con¬ 
tinued  until  the  triumph  of  democracy.  There  were 
cities  where  it  disappeared  only  after  an  insurrection. 
AtHeraclea,  Cnidus,  Istros,  and  Marseilles  the  younger 
branches  took  up  arms  to  destroy  at  the  same  time  the 
right  of  primogeniture  and  the  paternal  authority.1 
From  that  time  Greek  cities  that  had  not  before  counted 
more  than  a  hundred  men  enjoying  political  rights, 
could  count  five  or  six  hundred.  All  the  members  of 
aristocratic  familes  were  citizens,  and  magistracies  and 
the  senate  were  open  to  them. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell  at  what  time  the  privilege  of 
birth  disappeared  at  Rome.  It  is  probable  that  the 
kings,  in  the  midst  of  their  struggle  against  the  aris¬ 
tocracy,  did  all  that  lay  in  their  power  thus  to  suppress 
and  disorganize  the  gentes.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
republic,  we  see  a  hundred  new  members  enter  the 
senate.  Livy  believed  that  they  came  from  the  plebs  ; 3 
but  it  is  not  possible  that  the  hard  rule  of  the  patricians 
could  have  commenced  with  a  concession  of  this  nature. 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  5,  2,  ed.  B.  Saint  Hilaire. 

8  He  contradicts  himself  elsewhere.  Ex  primoribus  ordinis 
cquestris ,  he  says.  Now,  the  primores  of  the  equestrian  order  — 
that  is  to  say,  the  knights  of  the  first  six  centuries  —  were  patri¬ 
cians.  See  Belot,  Hist,  des  chevaliers  romains ,  liv.  I.  ch.  2. 


340 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


These  new  senators  must  have  been  taken  from  patri¬ 
cian  families;  they  had  not  the  same  title  as  the  old 
members  of  the  senate;  these  latter  were  called  patres 
(chiefs  of  families)  ;  the  new  ones  were  called  conscripti 
(chosen).1  Does  not  this  difference  of  name  make  it 
probable  that  the  hundred  new  senators,  who  were  not 
family  chiefs,  belonged  to  younger  branches  of  patrician 
gentes  ?  We  may  suppose  that  this  class  of  the  younger 
branches,  being  numerous  and  energetic,  lent  its  sup¬ 
port  to  the  enterprise  of  Brutus  and  the  fathers ,  only 
on  the  condition  of  receiving  civil  and  political  rights. 
These  branches  thus  acquired,  through  the  need  which 
the  patres  had  of  them,  what  the  same  class  conquered 
by  its  arms  at  Heraclea,  Cnidus,  and  Marseilles. 

The  right  of  primogeniture,  then,  disappeared  every¬ 
where  —  an  important  revolution  which  began  to  trans¬ 
form  society.  The  Italian  gens  and  the  Hellenic  yèvog 
lost  their  primitive  unity.  The  different  branches  sep¬ 
arated  ;  thenceforth  each  had  its  share  of  the  property, 
its  domicile,  its  own  interests,  and  its  independence. 
Singuli  singulas  familias  incipiunt  habere ,  says  the 
jurisconsult.  There  is  in  the  Latin  language  an  old 
expression  which  appears  to  date  from  this  epoch; 
familiam  ducere,  they  said  of  one  who  separated  from 
the  gens,  and  established  a  new  stock,  just  as  they  said 
ducere  coloniam  of  one  who  quitted  the  metropolis, 
and  went  to  found  a  colony.  The  brother  who  thus 
separated  from  the  oldest  brother  had  thenceforth  his 
own  sacred  fire,  which,  doubtless,  he  had  lighted  at  the 
common  fire  of  the  gens,  as  the  colony  lighted  its  fire 
at  the  prytaneum  of  the  metropolis.  The  gens  no  longer 

1  Festus,  v.  Conscripti ,  Allecti.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  5S. 
For  several  centuries  the  patres  were  distinguished  from  the 
conSfrApti. 


CHAP.  Y. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


341 


preserved  anything  more  than  a  sort  of  religious  author¬ 
ity  over  the  different  families  that  had  left  it.  Its  worship 
had  the  supremacy  over  theirs.  They  were  not  allowed 
to  forget  that  they  had  sprung  from  this  gens  ;  they  con¬ 
tinued  to  bear  its  name;  on  fixed  days  they  assembled 
around  the  common  fire,  to  venerate  the  ancient  ances¬ 
tor  or  the  protecting  divinity.  They  continued  even  to 
have  a  religious  chief,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  oldest 
preserved  Ids  privilege  of  the  priesthood,  which  long 
remained  hereditary.  With  this  exception,  they  were 
independent. 

This  dismemberment  of  the  gens  led  to  important 
consequences.  The  antique  priestly  family,  which  had 
formed  a  group  so  firmly  united,  so  strongly  consti¬ 
tuted,  so  powerful,  was  forever  weakened.  This  revolu¬ 
tion  paved  the  way  for  other  changes,  and  rendered 
them  easier 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Clients  become  Free. 

1.  What  Clientship  was  at  first,  and  how  it  was 

transformed. 

Here  is  another  revolution,  the  date  of  which  w& 
cannot  indicate,  but  which  certainly  modified  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  the  family  and  of  society  itself.  The  ancient 
family  comprised,  under  the  authority  of  a  single  chief, 
two  classes  of  unequal  rank;  on  the  one  side  were  the 
younger  branches  —  that  is  to  say,  individuals  naturally 
free  ;  on  the  other,  the  servants  or  clients,  inferior  by 
birth,  but  connected  with  the  chief  by  their  participa 


S  42 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


tion  ill  the  domestic  worship.  We  have  just  seen  one 
of  these  classes  emerge  from  its  inferior  condition  ;  the 
second  also  aspired  at  an  early  date  to  become  free.  It 
succeeded  in  the  course  of  time;  clientship  became 
modified,  and  finally  disappeared. 

This  was  an  immense  change,  which  the  ancient 
writers  have  given  us  no  account  of.  In  the  same  way, 
in  the  middle  ages,  the  chroniclers  do  not  tell  us  how 
the  rural  population  were  transformed  by  degrees. 
There  has  been  in  the  existence  of  human  societies  a 
great  number  of  revolutions  no  trace  of  which  has  been 
handed  down  to  us  in  any  document.  Writers  have 
not  noticed  them,  because  they  were  accomplished 
slowly,  in  an  insensible  manner,  without  any  apparent 
struggle  ;  profound  and  silent  revolutions,  which  moved 
the  foundations  of  human  society,  without  anything  ap¬ 
pearing  on  the  surface,  and  which  remained  concealed 
even  from  the  generations  that  took  part  in  them. 
History  can  seize  them  only  a  long  time  after  they  have 
taken  place,  when,  in  comparing  two  epochs  in  the  life 
of  a  people,  it  sees  differences  between  them,  which 
show  that  a  great  revolution  has  been  acomplished. 

If  we  credit  the  picture  which  writers  have  traced 
of  the  primitive  clientship  of  Rome,  that  must  have  been 
truly  a  golden  age.  Who  could  be  more  humane  than 
this  patron,  who  defended  his  client  before  the  courts, 
who  sustained  him  with  his  money  if  he  was  poor,  and 
who  provided  for  the  education  of  his  children  ?  What 
could  be  more  touching  than  to  see  this  client  sustain 
the  patron  when  he  had  fallen  into  debt,  paying  his 
debts,  giving  all  he  had  to  procure  his  ransom?  But 
there  was  not  so  much  sentiment  among  the  ancients. 
Disinterested  affection  and  devotion  were  never  institu¬ 
tions.  We  must  have  another  idea  of  client  and  patron. 


«niAF.  vi. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


343 


What  we  know  with  the  greatest  certainty  concern¬ 
ing  the  client  is,  that  he  could  not  leave  one  patron  and 
choose  another,  and  that  he  was  bound,  from  father  to 
son,  to  the  same  family.  If  we  knew  only  this,  it  would 
be  suflicicnt  to  convince  us  that  his  condition  could  not 
be  a  very  desirable  one.  Let  us  add  that  the  client  was 
not  a  proprietor  of  the  soil  ;  the  land  belonged  to  the 
patron,  who,  as  chief  of  a  domestic  worship,  and  also  as 
a  member  of  a  city,  was  the  only  one  qualified  to  be  a 
proprietor.  If  the  client  cultivated  the  soil,  it  was  in 
the  name  and  for  the  profit  of  the  master.  He  was  not 
even  the  owner  of  personal  property,  of  his  money,  of 
his  peculium .  As  a  proof  of  this,  the  patron  could  take 
from  him  all  these  things  to  pay  his  own  debts  or  his 
ransom.  Thus  nothing  belonged  to  the  client.  True, 
the  patron  owed  him  and  his  children  a  living;  but,  in 
turn,  his  labor  was  due  to  the  patron.  We  cannot  say 
that  he  was  precisely  a  slave;  but  he  had  a  master,  to 
whom  he  belonged,  and  to  whose  will  he  was  in  all 
things  subject.  During  his  whole  life  he  was  a  client, 
and  his  sons  after  him  were  clients. 

There  is  some  analogy  between  the  client  of  ancient 
times  and  the  serf  of  the  middle  ages.  The  principle 
which  condemned  them  to  obedience  was  not  the  same, 
it  is  true.  For  the  serf,  this  principle  was  the  right  of 
property,  which  was  exercised  at  the  same  time  over 
the  soil  and  over  man  ;  for  the  client,  this  principle 
was  the  domestic  religion,  to  which  he  was  bound 
under  the  authority  of  the  patron,  who  was  its  priest. 
Otherwise  the  subordination  of  the  client  and  of  the 
berf  was  the  same  ;  the  one  was  bound  to  his  patron  as 
the  other  was  bound  to  his  lord;  the  client  could  no 
more  quit  the  gens  than  the  serf  could  quit  the  glebe. 
The  client,  like  the  serf,  remained  subject  to  a  master, 


344 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


from  father  to  son.  A  passage  in  Livy  leads  us  to  sup 
pose  that  he  was  forbidden  to  marry  outside  the  gens, 
as  the  serf  was  forbidden  to  marry  outside  the  village. 
It  is  certain  that  he  could  not  contract  marriage  without 
the  permission  of  his  patron.  The  patron  could  take 
possession  of  the  soil  which  the  client  cultivated,  and 
the  money  which  he  possessed,  as  the  lord  could  do  in 
the  case  of  the  serf.  If  the  client  died,  all  that  he  had 
been  in  possession  of  returned  of  right  to  the  patron, 
just  as  the  succession  of  the  serf  belonged  to  the  lord. 

The  patron  was  not  only  a  master;  he  was  a  judge; 
he  could  condemn  a  client  to  death.  He  was,  more¬ 
over,  a  religious  chief.  The  client  bent  under  this  au¬ 
thority,  at  the  same  time  material  and  moral,  which 
held  both  body  and  soul.  His  religion,  it  is  true,  im¬ 
posed  duties  upon  the  patron,  but  they  were  duties  of 
which  he  alone  was  the  judge,  and  for  which  there  was 
no  sanction.  The  client  saw  nothing  that  protected 
him  :  he  was  not  of  himself  a  citizen  ;  if  he  wished  to 
appear  before  the  tribunal  of  the  city,  his  patron  might 
conduct  him  there,  and  speak  for  him.  Did  he  ask  the 
protection  of  the  laws?  He  did  not  know  the  sacred 
formulas  ;  and  if  he  knew  them,  the  first  law  for  him 
was  never  to  testify  or  to  speak  against  his  patron. 
Without  the  patron  there  was  no  justice;  against  the 
patron  there  was  no  recourse. 

The  client  did  not  exist  at  Rome  only  ;  he  was  found 
among  the  Sabines  and  the  Etruscans,  making  a  part 
of  the  manus  of  every  chief.  He  existed  in  the  ancient 
Hellenic  gens  as  well  as  in  that  of  Italy.  We  must  not 
look  for  him  in  the  Dorian  cities,  it  is  true,  where  the 
rule  of  the  gens  disappeared  at  an  early  date,  and  where 
the  conquered  peoples  were  bound,  not  to  a  master, 
but  to  a  lot  of  land.  We  find  a  similar  cliss  at 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


345 


Athens,  and  in  the  Ionian  and  Æolian  cities,  undei  the 
name  of  Thetes ,  or  Pelatœ. 

So  long  as  the  aristocratic  government  lasted,  these 
Thetes  did  not  make  a  part  of  the  city.  Shut  up  in 
families,  which  they  could  not  leave,  they  were  in  the 
power  of  the  Eupatrids,  who  had  the  same  character 
and  the  same  authority  as  the  Roman  patrons. 

We  can  easily  believe  that  at  an  early  date  there 
was  hatred  between  the  patron  and  the  client.  It  is 
not  difficult  to  picture  to  one’s  self  the  kind  of  life  that 
was  passed  in  that  family  where  one  had  the  authority 
and  the  other  had  no  rights  ;  where  obedience,  without 
reserve  and  without  hope,  was  placed  by  the  side  of 
unrestrained  power;  where  the  best  master  had  his 
angry  moods  and  his  caprices  ;  where  the  most  resigned 
servant  had  his  rancor,  his  complaints,  and  his  hatred. 
Ulysses  was  a  good  master;  see  what  a  paternal  affec¬ 
tion  he  has  for  Eumæus  and  Philætius.  But  he  orders 
to  be  put  to  death  a  servant  who  has  insulted  him 
without  knowing  him,  and  others  who  have  fallen  into 
the  bad  ways  to  which  his  absence  has  exposed  them. 
He  is  responsible  to  the  city  for  the  death  of  his  de¬ 
pendants;  but  for  the  death  of  his  servants  no  one  asks 
any  reason. 

In  the  state  of  isolation  in  which  the  family  had  long 
lived,  clientship  sprang  up  and  maintained  itself.  The 
domestic  religion  was  then  all-powerful  over  the  soul. 
The  man  who  was  its  priest  by  hereditary  right  ap¬ 
peared  to  the  inferior  classes  as  a  sacred  being.  More 
than  man,  he  was  an  intercessor  between  man  and  God. 
From  his  mouth  went  forth  the  powerful  prayer,  the 
irresistible  formula,  which  brought  down  the  favor  or 
the  anger  of  the  divinity.  Before  such  a  power  he  felt 
compelled  to  bow  ;  obedience  was  commanded  both  by 


346 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


faith  and  by  religion  ;  and,  besides,  what  temptation 
could  the  client  have  to  free  himself?  He  saw  no 
horizon  beyond  this  family,  to  which  everything  be¬ 
longed.  In  it  alone  he  found  life  calm  and  subsistence 
assured  ;  in  it  alone,  although  he  had  a  master,  he 
had  also  a  protector;  in  it  alone,  in  fine,  he  found  an 
altar  which  he  could  approach,  and  gods  whom  he  was 
permitted  to  invoke.  To  quit  this  family  was  to  place 
himself  outside  all  social  organization  and  all  law  ;  it 
was  to  lose  his  gods  and  to  renounce  the  right  of 
prayer. 

But  when  the  city  had  been  founded,  the  clients  of 
the  different  families  could  see  each  other,  could  confer 
together,  could  make  an  interchange  of  their  desires 
and  griefs,  compare  their  masters,  and  obtain  a  glimpse 
of  a  better  fate.  Then  their  view  began  to  extend  be¬ 
yond  the  limits  of  the  family.  They  saw  that  beyond 
their  circle  there  existed  society,  rules,  laws,  altars, 
temples,  and  gods.  To  quit  the  family  was  no  longer, 
therefore,  for  them,  an  evil  without  a  remedy.  The 
temptation  became  every  day  stronger;  clientship 
seemed  to  them  a  burden  every  day  heavier,  and  they 
ceased  to  believe  that  the  master’s  authority  was  legit¬ 
imate  and  sacred.  Then  sprang  up  in  the  hearts  of 
these  men  an  ardent  desire  to  be  free.  True,  we  do  not 
find  in  the  history  of  any  city  mention  made  of  a  gen¬ 
eral  insurrection  among  this  class.  If  there  were 
armed  struggles,  they  were  shut  up  and  concealed 
within  the  circle  of  each  family.  For  more  than  one 
generation  there  were  on  one  side  energetic  efforts  for 
independence,  and  implacable  repression  on  the  other. 
There  took  place  in  each  house  a  long  and  dramatic 
series  of  events  which  it  is  impossible  to-day  to  retrace. 
All  that  we  can  say  is,  that  the  efforts  of  the  lower 


’HAP.  Y  I. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FllEE. 


34T 


classes  were  not  without  results.  An  invincible  neces¬ 
sity  obliged  the  masters,  little  by  little,  to  relinquish 
some  of  their  omnipotence.  When  authority  ceases  to 
appear  just  to  the  subjects,  time  must  still  elapse  be¬ 
fore  it  will  cease  to  appear  so  to  the  masters.  But  this 
happens  after  a  while,  and  then  the  master,  who  no 
longer  believes  in  the  justice  of  his  authority,  defends 
it  badly,  or  ends  by  renouncing  it.  Besides,  this  in¬ 
ferior  class  was  useful  ;  by  cultivating  the  earth,  it 
accumulated  the  riches  of  the  master,  and  by  carrying 
arms,  it  constituted  his  strength  in  the  midst  of  family 
rivalries.  It  was  therefore  wise  to  satisfy  these  men, 
and  interest  united  with  humanity  to  recommend  con¬ 
cessions. 

It  appears  certain  that  the  condition  of  clients  im¬ 
proved  by  degrees.  At  first  they  lived  in  the  master’s 
house,  cultivating  the  common  domain  together.  Later 
a  separate  lot  of  land  was  assigned  to  each.  The  cli¬ 
ent  must  already  have  found  himself  happier.  He  still 
worked  for  his  master’s  profit,  it  is  true;  the  field  was 
not  his;  he  rather  belonged  to  that.  Still  he  cultivat¬ 
ed  it  for  a  long  succession  of  years,  and  he  loved  it. 
There  grew  up  between  it  and  him,  not  that  bond 
which  the  religion  of  property  had  created  between  it 
and  the  master,  but  another  bond  —  that  which  labor 
and  suffering  even  can  form  between  the  man  who  gives 
his  care,  and  the  earth  which  gives  its  fruits. 

Later  came  new  progress.  He  no  longer  worked  for 
the  master,  but  for  himself.  On  condition  of  an  an¬ 
nual  rent,  which  at  first  was  perhaps  variable,  but  which 
afterwards  became  fixed,  he  had  the  benefit  of  the  har¬ 
vest.  He  thus  found  some  recompense  for  his  labor, 
and  his  life  was  at  the  same  time  freer  and  more  inde¬ 
pendent.  “The  chiefs  of  families,”  says  one  of  the 


348 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


ancients,  “  assigned  portions  of  land  to  their  inferiors, 
as  if  they  had  been  their  own  children.”  1  So,  too,  we 
read  in  the  Odyssey,  “  A  kind  master  gives  his  servant 
a  house  and  a  field;”  and  Eumæus  adds,  a  “desired 
wife,”  because  the  client  could  not  yet  marry  without 
the  consent  of  the  master,  and  it  was  this  master  who 
chose  his  companion  for  him. 

But  this  field,  where,  thenceforward,  his  life  was 
passed,  where  he  foufid  all  his  labor  and  all  his  enjoy¬ 
ment,  was  not  yet  his  property.  For  this  client  did  not 
possess  that  sacred  character  which  enabled  him  to 
hold  property.  The  lot  that  he  occupied  continued  to 
be  bounded  by  the  sacred  landmarks  —  the  god  Termi¬ 
nus,  whom  the  family  of  the  master  had  formerly 
placed  there.  These  inviolable  bounds  attested  that 
the  field,  attached  to  the  family  of  the  master  by  a 
sacred  tie,  could  never  become  the  absolute  property 
of  a  freed  client.  In  Italy  the  field,  and  the  house 
which  the  villicas  —  the  client  of  the  patron  —  occu¬ 
pied,  contained  a  sacred  fire,  a  Lar  familiaris  /  but  this 
fire  did  not  belong  to  the  cultivator;  it  was  the  mas¬ 
ter’s  fire.2  This  established  at  the  same  time  the  right 
of  property  in  the  patron,  and  the  religious  subordina¬ 
tion  of  the  client,  who,  so  long  as  he  belonged  to  the 
patron,  still  followed  the  patron’s  worship. 

The  client,  as  soon  as  he  came  into  possession  of 
property,  suffered  from  not  being  the  proprietor,  and 
aspired  to  become  such.  It  became  his  ambition  to 
remove  from  this  field  —  which  seemed  to  be  his  by  the 
right  of  labor — those  sacred  bounds  which  made  it 
forever  the  property  of  the  former  master. 

1  Festus,  v.  Patres. 

*  Cato,  De  Re  Rust.y  143.  Columella,  XI.  1,  19. 


£HAP.  VI. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


349 


We  see  clearly  that  in  Greece  the  clients  attained 
their  object  ;  but  we  do  not  know  by  what  means. 
How  much  time  and  how  many  efforts  were  required 
for  this  we  can  only  guess.  Possibly  the  same  series 
of  social  changes  took  place  in  antiquity  which  Europe 
saw  in  the  middle  ages,  when  the  slaves  in  the  coun¬ 
try  became  serfs  of  the  glebe,  when  the  latter,  from 
serfs,  taxable  at  will,  were  changed  to  serfs  with  a  fixed 
rent,  and  when  finally  they  were  transformed,  in  the 
course  of  time,  into  peasant  proprietors. 

2.  Clientship  disappears  at  Athens .  The  Work  of 

Solon. 

This  sort  of  a  revolution  is  clearly  marked  in  the 
history  of  Athens.  The  effect  of  the  overthrow  of 
royalty  had  been  to  revive  the  régime  of  the  yêvoçy 
families  had  returned  to  their  isolated  condition,  and 
each  had  begun  to  form  a  little  state,  with  a  Eu- 
patrid  for  a  chief,  and  a  multitude  of  clients  for  sub¬ 
jects.  This  government  appears  to  have  weighed 
heavily  upon  the  Athenian  population,  for  they  retained 
an  unfavorable  recollection  of  it.  The  people  thought 
themselves  so  unhappy  that  the  preceding  period  ap¬ 
peared  to  have  been  a  sort  of  golden  age.  They  re¬ 
gretted  their  kings,  and  began  to  imagine  that  under 
the  monarchy  they  had  been  happy  and  free  ;  that  they 
had  then  enjoyed  equality,  and  that  it  was  only  since 
the  fall  of  the  kings  that  inequality  and  suffering  had 
commenced.  This  was  such  an  illusion  as  men  often 
entertain.  Popular  tradition  placed  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  the  inequality  at  the  time  when  the  people 
began  to  find  it  odious.  This  clientship,  this  sort  of 
slavery,  which  was  as  old  as  the  constitution  of  the 


350 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOR  r»\ 


family,  they  dated  from  the  time  when  men  had  first 
felt  its  weight  and  understood  its  injustice.  It  is  very 
certain,  however,  that  it  was  not  in  the  seventh  cen¬ 
tury  that  the  Eupatrids  established  the  hard  laws  of 
clientship.  They  did  no  more  than  to  preserve  them. 
In  this  alone  was  their  injustice;  they  maintained  these 
laws  beyond  the  time  when  men  accepted  them  with¬ 
out  complaint,  and  maintained  them  against  the  will 
of  the  people.  The  Eupatrids  of  this  epoch  were  per¬ 
haps  easier  masters  than  their  ancestors  had  been;  and 
yet  they  were  more  heartily  detested. 

It  appears  that  even  under  the  rule  of  this  aristocracy 
the  condition  of  the  lower  class  was  improved;  for  cer¬ 
tainly  at  that  time  it  obtained  possession  of  lots  of  land 
on  the  single  condition  of  paying  a  rent,  which  was  fixed 
at  one  sixth  of  the  harvest.  These  men  were  thus 
almost  emancipated  ;  having  a  home  and  living  no 
longer  under  the  master’s  eye,  they  breathed  more 
freely  and  labored  for  their  own  profit. 

But  such  is  human  nature  that  these  men.  as  their 
condition  improved,  felt  more  keenly  the  inequality 
that  remained.  Not  to  be  a  citizen,  and  to  have  nc 
part  in  the  administration  of  the  city,  doubtless  touched 
them  somewhat;  but  not  to  be  capable  of  owning  the 
soil  upon  which  they  were  born  and  died,  affected 
them  much  more.  What  rendered  their  condition  sup¬ 
portable,  let  us  add,  lacked  stability.  For  though  they 
were  really  in  possession  of  the  soil,  no  formal  law  as¬ 
sured  them  either  this  possession  or  the  independence 
that  flowed  from  it.  We  see  in  Plutarch  that  the  former 
patron  could  renew  his  claim  upon  his  former  servant. 
If  the  annual  rent  was  not  paid,  or  for  any  other  cause, 
these  men  relapsed  into  a  sort  of  slavery. 

Grave  questions  were  agitated  in  Attica,  therefore, 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  CLIENT»  BECOME  FREE. 


at>i 


during  a  series  of  four  or  five  generations.  It  was 
hardly  possible  that  men  of  the  lower  class  could  re¬ 
main  in  this  unstable  and  anomalous  position  towards 
which  an  insensible  progress  had  conducted  them.  One 
of  two  things  was  sure  to  follow  :  either,  losing  this 
position,  they  must  relapse  into  the  bonds  of  an  oner¬ 
ous  clientship,  or,  completely  freed  by  a  still  farther 
progress,  they  must  rise  to  the  rank  of  landed  proprie¬ 
tors  and  free  men. 

We  can  imagine  all  the  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  la¬ 
borer,  the  former  client,  and  all  the  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  proprietor,  the  former  patron.  It  was  not 
a  civil  war.  The  Athenian  annals  have  not  preserved 
the  record  of  a  single  combat.  It  was  a  domestic  war 
in  each  hamlet,  in  each  house,  from  father  to  son. 

These  struggles  appear  to  have  had  various  fortunes, 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  soil  in  different  cantons 
in  Attica.  In  the  plain  where  the  Eupatrid  had  his 
principal  domain,  and  where  he  was  always  present,  his 
authority  over  the  little  group  of  servants  who  were 
always  under  his  eye  remained  almost  intact;  the 
Pedieis — or  men  of  the  plain —  therefore,  generally 
showed  themselves  faithful  to  the  old  régime.  But  the 
Diacrii,  —  those  who  cultivated  the  sides  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  with  severe  toil,  —  being  farther  from  .the  master, 
more  habituated  to  an  independent  life,  more  hardy  and 
more  courageous,  laid  up  in  their  hearts  a  violent  ha¬ 
tred  for  the  Eupatrid,  and  a  firm  resolve  to  be  free. 
These  especially  were  the  men  who  were  indignant  to 
see  about  the  fields  the  “sacred  bounds”  of  the  mas¬ 
ter,  and  to  feel  that  “their  soil  was  enslaved.”  1  As  to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  cantons  near  the  sea, —-the 


1  Solon,  Ed.  Bach,  pp.  104,  105. 


352 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


Paralii,  — the  ownership  of  the  soil  tempted  them  less; 
they  had  the  sea  before  them,  and  commerce,  and  trade. 
Several  had  become  rich,  and  with  riches  they  were 
nearly  free.  They  therefore  did  not  share  the  ardent 
desire  of  the  Diacrii,  and  did  not  feel  any  vigorous 
hatred  of  the  Eupatrids.  They  had  not,  however,  the 
base  resignation  of  the  Pedieis;  they  demanded  more 
stability  in  their  condition,  and  better  assured  rights. 

Solon  satisfied  these  wishes  so  far  as  was  possible. 
There  is  a  part  of  the  work  of  this  legislator  which  the 
ancients  have  very  imperfectly  explained  to  us,  but 
which  appears  to  have  been  the  principal  part  of  it. 
Before  his  time,  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Attica  still  held  but  a  precarious  possession  of  the  soil, 
and  might  be  reduced  to  personal  servitude.  After 
him  this  class  was  no  longer  found  ;  the  right  of  prop¬ 
erty  was  accessible  to  all  ;  there  was  no  longer  any 
slavery  for  the  Athenian;  the  families  of  the  lower 
classes  were  forever  freed  from  the  authority  of  the 
Eupatrid  families.  Here  was  a  great  change,  whose 
author  could  be  no  other  than  Solon. 

According  to  Plutarch’s  account,  it  is  true,  Solon  did 
no  more  than  to  soften  the  rigor  of  the  law  of  debt 
by  abolishing  the  right  of  the  creditor  to  enslave  the 
debtor.  But  we  should  carefully  examine  what  a 
writer  so  long  after  this  period  says  of  those  debts  that 
troubled  the  Athenian  city,  as  well  as  all  the  cities  of 
Greece  and  Italy.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  before 
Solon  there  was  so  great  a  circulation  of  money  that 
there  were  many  borrowers  and  lenders.  We  are  not 
to  judge  those  times  by  the  period  that  followed. 
There  was  at  that  time  very  little  commerce;  bills  of 
exchange  were  unknown,  and  credits  must  have  been 
very  rare.  On  what  security  could  a  man  borrow  who 


s 


CHAP.  VI, 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


353 


owned  nothing  ?  Men  are  not  much  accustomed,  in  any 
society,  to  lend  to  the  poor.  The  assertion  is  made,  it 
is  true,  on  the  faith  of  the  translator  of  Plutarch  rather 
than  on  Plutarch  himself,  that  the  borrower  mortgaged 
his  land  ;  but,  supposing  this  land  was  his  property,  he 
could  not  have  mortgaged  it,  for  mortgages  were  not 
then  known,  and  were  contrary  to  the  nature  of  pro¬ 
prietary  right.  In  those  debtors  of  whom  Plutarch 
speaks  we  must  see  the  former  clients;  in  their  debts, 
the  annual  rent  which  they  were  to  pay  to  their  former 
masters  ;  and  in  the  slavery  into  which  they  fell  if  they 
failed  to  pay,  the  former  clientship,  to  which  they  were 
again  reduced. 

Perhaps  Solon  suppressed  the  rent  ;  or,  more  proba¬ 
bly,  reduced  the  amount  of  it,  so  that  the  payment 
became  easy.  He  added  the  provision,  that  in  future 
the  failure  to  pay  should  not  reduce  the  laborer  to 
servitude. 

He  did  more.  Before  him  these  former  clients,  when 
they  came  into  possession  of  the  soil,  could  not  become 
the  owners  of  it  ;  for  upon  their  fields  the  sacred  and 
inviolable  bounds  of  the  former  patron  still  stood.  For 
the  enfranchisement  of  the  soil  and  of  the  cultivator, 
it  was  necessary  that  these  bounds  should  disappear. 
Solon  abolished  them.  We  find  the  evidence  of  this 
great  reform  in  some  verses  of  Solon  himself:  “It  was 
an  unhoped-for  work,”  said  he  ;  “  I  have  accomplished 
it  with  the  aid  of  the  gods.  I  call  to  witness  the  god¬ 
dess  Mother,  the  black  earth,  whose  landmarks  I  have 
in  many  places  torn  up,  the  earth,  which  was  enslaved, 
and  is  now  free.”  In  doing  this,  Solon  had  accomplished 
a  considerable  revolution.  He  had  put  aside  the  an¬ 
cient  religion  of  property,  which,  in  the  name  of  the 
immovable  god  Terminus,  retained  the  land  in  a  small 

23 


354 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IT 


number  of  hands.  He  had  wrested  the  earth  from  re¬ 
ligion  to  give  it  to  labor.  He  had  suppressed,  with  the 
Eupatrid’s  authority  over  the  soil,  his  authority  over 
man,  and  he  could  say  in  his  verses,  “  Those  who  in 
this  land  suffered  cruel  servitude  and  trembled  before 
a  master,  I  have  made  free.”  It  is  probable  that  this 
enfranchisement  is  what  the  contemporaries  of  Solon 
called  oeiouxdelu  (shaking  off  the  burdens).  Later  gen¬ 
erations,  who,  once  habituated  to  liberty,  would  not, 
or  could  not,  believe  that  their  forefathers  had  been 
serfs,  explained  this  word  as  if  it  merely  marked  an 
abolition  of  debts.  But  there  is  an  energy  in  it  which 
reveals  a  greater  revolution.  Let  us  add  here  this  sen¬ 
tence  of  Aristotle,  which,  without  entering  into  an 
account  of  Solon’s  labors,  simply  says,  “He  put  an  end 
to  the  slavery  of  the  people.”  1 

3.  Transformation  of  Clientship  at  Rome . 

This  war  between  clients  and  patrons  also  filled  a 
long  period  of  Rome’s  history.  Livy,  indeed,  says 
nothing  of  it,  because  he  is  not  accustomed  closely  to 
observe  the  changes  in  institutions;  besides,  the  annals 
of  the  pontiffs,  and  similar  documents,  from  which  the 
ancient  historians  whom  Livy  consulted  had  drawn, 
could  have  contained  no  account  of  these  domestic 
struggles. 

One  thing,  at  least,  is  certain.  There  were  clients 
in  the  very  beginning  of  Rome  ;  there  has  even  come 
down  to  us  very  precise  evidence  of  the  dependence  in 
which  their  patrons  held  them.  If,  several  centuries 
afterwards,  we  look  for  these  clients,  we  no  longer  find 


1  Aristotle,  Oov.  of  Ath.,  Fragrn .,  coll.  Didot,  t.  II.  p.  107. 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


355 


them.  The  name  still  exists,  but  not  clientship.  Foi 
there  is  nothing  more  distinct  from  the  clients  of  the 
primitive  period  than  these  plebeians  of  Cicero’s  time, 
who  called  themselves  the  clients  of  some  rich  man  in 
order  to  have  the  right  to  the  sportula . 

There  were  those  who  more  nearly  resembled  the 
ancient  clients;  these  were  the  freedmen.1  No  more 
did  one  freed  from  servitude  at  once  become  a  free 
man  and  a  citizen  at  the  end  of  the  republic,  than  in  the 
first  ages  of  Rome.  He  remained  subject  to  a  master. 
Formerly  they  called  him  a  client,  now  they  call  him  a 
freedman  ;  the  name  only  is  changed.  As  to  the  master, 
his  name  does  not  even  change;  formerly  they  called 
him  patron,  and  they  still  call  him  by  the  same  name. 
The  freedman,  like  the  client  of  earlier  days,  remains 
attached  to  the  family  ;  he  takes  its  name,  like  the  an¬ 
cient  client.  He  depends  upon  the  patron  ;  he  owes 
him  not  only  gratitude,  but  a  veritable  service,  whose 
measure  the  master  himself  fixes.  The  patron  has  the 
fight  to  judge  the  freedman,  as  be  had  to  judge  the 
client;  he  can  remit  to  slavery  for  the  crime  of  in¬ 
gratitude.2  The  freedman,  therefore,  recalls  the  ancient 
client.  Between  them  there  is  but  one  difference  : 
clientship  formerly  passed  from  father  to  son  ;  now  the 
condition  of  freedman  ceases  in  the  second,  or,  at  far¬ 
thest,  in  the  third  generation.  Clientship,  then,  has  not 
disappeared  ;  it  still  seizes  a  man  at  the  moment  when 

1  The  freedman  became  a  client.  The  identity  of  these  two 
terms  is  marked  in  a  passage  of  Dionysius,  IV.  23. 

2  Digest ,  XXV.  tit.  2,  5  ;  L.  tit.  1G,  195.  Valerius  Maximus, 
V.  1,  4.  Suetonius,  Claudius ,  25.  Dion  Cassius,  LV.  The 
legislation  was  the  same  at  Athens  ;  see  Lysias  and  Hyperides  in 
Harpocration,  v.  ’ Anooruaiov .  Demosthenes  in  Aristogitonem , 
and  Suidas,  v.  'Avay^atov. 


356 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


servitude  gives  him  up;  only  it  is  no  longer  hereditary. 
This  alone  is  a  considerable  change;  but  we  are  unable 
to  state  when  it  took  place. 

We  can  easily  discover  the  successive  improvements 
that  were  made  in  the  condition  of  the  client,  and  by 
what  degrees  he  arrived  at  the  right  to  hold  property. 
At  first  the  chief  of  the  gens  assigned  him  a  lot  of  land 
to  cultivate; 1  he  soon  became  the  temporary  possessor 
of  this  lot,  on  condition  that  he  contributed  to  all  the 
expenses  of  his  former  master.  The  severe  conditions 
of  the  old  law,  which  obliged  him  to  pay  his  patron’s 
ransom,  the  dowry  of  his  daughter,  or  his  legal  fines, 
clearly  prove  that  when  this  law  was  written  he  was 
already  the  temporary  possessor  of  the  soil.  The  client 
made  one  farther  step  of  progress;  he  obtained  the 
right  of  transmitting,  at  his  death,  this  lot  to  his  son  ; 
in  default  of  a  son,  the  land  returned,  it  is  true,  to  the 
patron.  But  now  comes  new  progress:  the  client  who 
leaves  no  son  obtains  the  right  of  making  a  will.  Here 
custom  hesitates  and  varies  ;  sometimes  the  patron 
takes  half  the  property,  sometimes  the  will  of  the  tes¬ 
tator  is  fully  respected  ;  in  any  case  his  will  is  never 
invalid.9  Thus  the  client,  if  he  cannot  yet  call  himself 
a  proprietor,  has,  at  least,  as  extended  an  enjoyment  of 
property  as  is  possible. 

True,  this  was  not  complete  enfranchisement.  But 
no  document  enables  us  to  fix  the  epoch  when  the 
clients  were  definitively  detached  from  the  patrician 
families.  There  is  a  passage  of  Livy  (II.  16)  which, 
if  we  take  it  literally,  shows  that  from  the  first  years 
of  the  republic  the  clients  were  citizens.  There  is  a 

1  Festus,  r.  Patres. 

*  Institutes  of  Justinian,  III.  7. 


CHAP.  YI. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


357 


strong  probability  that  they  were  already  citizens  in  the 
time  of  king  Servius;  perhaps  they  even  voted  in  the 
comitia  curiata  from  the  foundation  of  Rome.  But  we 
cannot  conclude  from  this  that  they  were  then  entirely 
enfranchised,  since  it  is  possible  that  the  patricians 
found  it  for  their  interest  to  give  their  clients  political 
rights  without  consenting  on  that  account  to  give  them 
civil  rights. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  revolution  which  freed 
the  clients  at  Rome  was  accomplished  at  once,  as  at 
Athens.  It  took  place  very  slowly  and  imperceptibly, 
without  ever  having  been  consecrated  by  any  formal 
laws.  The  bonds  of  clientship  were  relaxed  little  by 
little,  and  the  client  was  removed  insensibly  from  the 
patron. 

King  Servius  introduced  a  great  reform  to  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  clients  ;  he  changed  the  organization  of 
the  army.  Before  his  reign  the  army  was  divided  into 
tribes,  curies, and  gentes;  this  was  the  patrician  division  ; 
every  chief  of  the  gens  was  at  the  head  of  his  clients. 

Servius  divided  the  army  into  centuries;  each  had 
his  rank  according  to  his  wealth.  By  this  arrangement 
the  client  no  longer  marched  by  the  side  of  his  patron; 
he  no  longer  recognized  him  as  a  chief  in  battle;  and 
he  became  accustomed  to  independence. 

This  change  produced  another  in  the  constitution  of 
the  comitia.  Formerly  the  assembly  was  divided  into 
curies  and  gentes,  and  the  client,  if  he  voted  at  all,  voted 
under  the  eye  of  the  master.  But  the  division  by  cen¬ 
turies  being  established  for  the  comitia  as  well  as  for 
the  army,  the  client  no  longer  found  himself  in  the  same 
division  as  the  patron.  The  old  law,  it  is  true,  com¬ 
manded  him  to  vote  the  same  as  his  patron  voted,  but 
how  could  his  vote  be  known  ? 


358 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


It  was  a  great  step  to  separate  the  client  from  the 
patron  in  the  most  solemn  moments  of  life,  at  the  mo¬ 
ment  of  combat,  and  at  the  moment  of  voting.  The 
authority  of  the  patron  was  greatly  diminished,  and 
what  remained  to  him  was  more  hotly  contested  daily. 
As  soon  as  the  client  had  tasted  of  independence,  he 
wished  for  the  complete  enjoyment  of  it.  He  aspired 
to  separate  from  the  gens  and  to  join  the  plebs,  where 
he  might  be  free.  How  many  occasions  presented 
themselves!  Under  the  kings,  he  was  sure  of  being 
aided  by  them,  for  they  asked  nothing  better  than  to 
enfeeble  the  gentes.  Under  the  republic,  he  found  the 
protection  of  the  plebs  themselves,  and  of  the  tribunes. 
Many  clients  were  thus  freed,  and  the  gens  could  not 
recover  them.  In  472  B.  C.,  the  number  of  clients 
was  still  considerable,  since  the  plebs  complained  that 
by  their  votes  in  the  comitia  centuriata ,  they  caused 
the  balance  to  incline  in  favor  of  the  patricians.1  About 
the  same  time,  the  plebs  having  refused  to  enroll,  the 
patricians  were  able  to  form  an  army  with  their  clients.8 
It  appears,  however,  that  these  clients  were  no  longer 
numerous  enough  alone  to  cultivate  the  lands  of  the 
patricians,  and  that  the  latter  were  obliged  to  borrow 
the  labor  of  the  plebs.3  It  is  probable  that  the  crea¬ 
tion  of  the  tribuneship,  by  protecting  the  escaped  cli¬ 
ents  against  their  former  patrons,  and  by  rendering  the 
condition  of  the  plebs  more  enviable  and  more  secure, 
hastened  this  gradual  movement  towards  enfranchise¬ 
ment.  In  the  year  372  there  were  no  longer  any 
clients,  and  Manlius  could  say  to  the  plebs,  u  As  many 
clients  as  you  have  been  about  a  single  patron,  so  many 

Livy,  II.  56.  2  Dionysius,  VII.  19;  X.  27. 

*  Inculti  per  secessionem  plebis  agri.  Livy,  II.  34. 


CHAP.  VI. 


THE  CLIENTS  BECOME  FREE. 


359 


now  shall  you  be  against  a  single  enemy.1  Thence¬ 
forth  we  no  longer  see  in  the  history  of  Rome  these 
ancient  clients,  these  men  hereditarily  attached  to  the 
gens.  Primitive  clientship  gave  place  to  a  clientship 
of  a  new  kind,  a  voluntary,  almost  fictitious  bond,  which 
no  longer  imposed  the  same  obligations.  W e  no  longer 
see  in  Rome  the  three  classes,  patricians,  clients,  and 
plebeians.  Only  two  remain;  the  clients  are  con¬ 
founded  with  the  plebs. 

The  Marcelli  appear  to  be  a  branch  thus  detached 
from  the  Claudian  gens.  They  were  Claudii  ;  but  as 
they  were  not  patricians,  they  belonged  to  the  gens 
only  as  clients.  Free  at  an  early  period,  and  enriched, 
by  what  means  we  know  not,  they  were  first  raised  to 
plebeian  dignities,  and  later  to  those  of  the  city.  For 
several  centuries  the  Claudian  gens  seems  to  have  for¬ 
gotten  its  rights  over  them.  One  day,  however,  in 
Cicero’s  time,2  it  recalled  them  to  mind  very  unex¬ 
pectedly.  A  freedman  or  client  of  the  Marcelli  died, 
leaving  property,  which,  according  to  law,  would  revert 
to  the  patron.  The  patrician  Claudii  claimed  that  the 
Marcelli,  being  clients,  could  not  themselves  have  cli¬ 
ents,  and  that  their  freedmen  and  their  property  should 
belong  to  the  chief  of  the  patrician  gens,  who  alone  was 
capable  of  exercising  the  rights  of  a  patron.  This  suit 
very  much  astonished  the  public,  and  embarrassed  the 
lawyers  :  Cicero  himself  thought  the  question  vei^  ob¬ 
scure.  Rut  it  would  not  have  been  so  foui  centuiies 
earlier,  and  the  Claudii  would  have  gained  their  cause. 
But  in  Cicero’s  time  the  laws  upon  which  they  founded 
their  claim  were  so  old  that  they  had  been  forgotten, 
and  the  court  easily  decided  the  case  in  favor  of  the 
Marcelli.  The  ancient  clientship  no  longer  existed. 


1  Livy,  VI.  18. 


*  Cicero,  De  Oratore,  I.  39- 


360 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Third  Revolution.  The  Plebs  enter  the  City. 

1.  General  History  of  this  Revolution . 

The  changes  which,  in  the  course  of  time,  had  taken 
place  in  the  constitution  of  the  family,  brought  with 
them  others  in  the  constitution  of  the  city.  The  old 
aristocratic  and  sacerdotal  family  became  weakened. 
The  right  of  primogeniture  having  disappeared,  this 
family  lost  its  unity  and  vigor  ;  the  clients  having 
been  for  the  most  part  freed,  it  lost  the  greater  part 
of  its  subjects. 

The  people  of  the  lower  orders  were  no  longer  dis¬ 
tributed  among  the  gentes,  but  lived  apart,  and  formed 
a  body  by  themselves.  Thus  the  city  assumed  quite 
another  aspect.  Instead  of  being,  as  at  an  earlier  date, 
a  fully  united  assemblage  of  as  many  little  states  as 
there  were  families,  a  union  was  formed  on  the  one 
side  among  the  patrician  members  of  the  gentes,  and 
on  the  other  side  between  men  of  the  lower  orders. 
There  were  thus  two  great  bodies,  two  hostile  socie¬ 
ties,  placed  face  to  face.  It  was  no  longer,  as  in  a  pre 
ceding  period,  an  obscure  struggle  in  each  family  ;  there 
was  open  war  in  each  city.  One  of  these  classes  wished 
to  maintain  the  religious  constitution  of  the  city,  and 
to  continue  the  government  and  the  priesthood  in  the 
hands  of  the  sacred  families.  The  other  wished  to 
break  down  the  barriers  that  placed  it  beyond  the  pale 
of  the  law,  of  religion,  and  of  politics. 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


361 


In  the  beginning  of  the  struggle,  the  advantage  was 
with  the  aristocracy  of  birth.  It  had  not,  indeed,  its 
former  subjects,  and  its  material  strength  had  disap¬ 
peared  ;  but  there  remained  its  religious  prestige,  its 
regular  organization,  its  habit  of  command,  its  tradi¬ 
tions,  and  its  hereditary  pride.  It  never  doubted  the 
justice  of  its  cause,  and  believed  that  in  defending 
itself  it  was  defending  religion.  The  people,  on  the 
other  hand,  had  nothing  but  numbers  on  their  side. 
They  were  held  back  by  a  habit  of  respect,  of  which 
they  could  not  easily  free  themselves.  Then,  too,  they 
had  no  leaders,  and  every  principle  of  organization 
was  wanting.  There  were,  in  the  beginning,  a  multi¬ 
tude  without  any  bond  of  union,  rather  than  a  vigor¬ 
ous  and  well-constituted  body.  If  we  bear  in  mind 
that  men  had  not  yet  discovered  any  other  principle 
of  association  than  the  hereditary  religion  of  the  fam¬ 
ily,  and  that  they  had  no  idea  of  any  authority  that 
was  not  derived  from  a  worship,  we  shall  easily  under¬ 
stand  that  the  plebs,  who  had  been  excluded  from  all 
the  rites  of  religion,  could  not  at  first  form  a  regular 
society,  and  that  much  time  was  required  for  them  to 
discover  the  elements  of  discipline  and  the  rules  of  a 
regular  government.  This  inferior  class,  in  its  weak¬ 
ness,  sawT  at  first  no  other  means  of  combating  the 
aristocracy  than  by  meeting  it  with  monarchy. 

In  the  cities  where  the  popular  class  had  been  al¬ 
ready  consolidated  in  the  time  of  the  ancient  kings,  it 
sustained  them  with  all  its  strength,  and  encouraged 
them  to  increase  their  power.  At  Rome  it  demanded 
the  restoration  of  monarchy  after  Romulus,  and  caused 
Hostilius  to  be  nominated;  it  made  Tarquinius  Prisons 
king;  it  loved  Servius,  and  regretted  Tarquinius  Su¬ 
perbus.  When  the  kings  had  been  everywhere  over- 


362 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


thrown,  and  the  aristocracy  had  become  supreme,  the 
people  did  not  content  themselves  with  regretting  the 
monarchy  ;  they  aspired  to  restore  it  under  a  new 
form.  In  Greece,  during  the  sixth  century,  they  suc¬ 
ceeded  generally  in  procuring  leaders;  not  wishing  to 
call  them  kings,  because  this  title  implied  the  idea  of 
relig  ious  functions,  and  could  only  be  borne  by  the 
sacerdotal  families,  they  called  them  tyrants.1 

Whatever  might  have  been  the  original  sense  of  this 
word,  it  certainly  was  not  borrowed  from  the  language 
of  religion.  Men  could  not  apply  it  to  the  gods,  as 
they  applied  the  word  king;  they  did  not  pronounce 
it  in  their  prayers.  It  designated,  in  fact,  something 
quite  new  among  men  —  an  authority  that  was  not  de¬ 
rived  from  the  worship,  a  power  that  religion  had  not 
established.  The  appearance  of  this  word  in  the  Greek 
language  marks  a  principle  which  the  preceding  gener¬ 
ations  had  not  known  — the  obedience  of  man  to  man. 
Up  to  that  time  there  had  been  no  other  chiefs  of  the 
state  than  those  who  had  been  chiefs  of  religion  ;  those 
only  governed  the  city  who  offered  the  sacrifices  and 
invoked  the  gods  for  it.  In  obeying  them,  men  obeyed 
only  the  religious  law,  and  made  no  act  of  submission 
except  to  the  divinity.  Obedience  to  a  man,  authority 
given  to  this  man  by  other  men,  a  power  human  in  its 
origin  and  nature  —  this  had  been  unknown  to  the  an¬ 
cient  Eupatrids,  and  was  never  thought  of  till  the  day 
when  the  inferior  orders  threw  off  the  yoke  of  the  aris¬ 
tocracy  and  attempted  a  new  government. 

Let  us  cite  a  few  examples.  At  Corinth,  “  the  peo- 

1  The  name  of  king  was  sometimes  given  to  these  popular 
chiefs  when  they  were  descended  from  religious  families.  He 
todoîu.'',  V.  hJ. 


CIIAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


363 


pie  supported  the  government  of  the  Bacchiadse  veiy 
unwillingly  ;  Cypselus,  understanding  this  hatied,  and 
seeing  that  the  people  sought  a  chief  to  conduct  them 
to  freedom,”  offered  himself  to  become  their  chief. 
The  people  accepted  him,  set  him  up  as  their  tyrant, 
drove  out  the  Bacchiadæ,  and  obeyed  Cypselus.  Mi¬ 
letus  had  as  a  tyrant  a  certain  Thrasybulus;  Mitylene 
obeyed  Pittacus,  and  Samos  Polycrates.  We  find 
tyrants  at  Argos,  at  Epidaurus,  and  at  Megara  in  the 
sixth  century;  Sicyon  had  tyrants  during  a  hundred 
and  thirty  years,  without  interruption.  Among  the 
Greeks  of  Italy  we  see  tyrants  at  Cumae,  at  Crotona, 
at  Sybaris  —  indeed  everywhere.  At  Syracuse,  in  435, 
the  lower  orders  made  themselves  masters  of  the  city, 
and  banished  the  aristocratic  class;  but  they  could 
neither  maintain  nor  govern  themselves,  and  at  the 
end  of  a  year  they  had  to  set  up  a  tyrant.1 

Everywhere  these  tyrants,  with  more  or  less  violence, 
had  the  same  policy.  A  tyrant  ot  Corinth  one  day 
asked  advice  concerning  government  of  a  tyrant  ot 
Miletus.  The  latter,  in  reply,  struck  off  the  heads  of 
grain  that  were  higher  than  the  others,  dlius  their 
rule  of  conduct  was  to  cut  down  the  high  heads,  and 
to  strike  at  the  aristocracy,  while  depending  upon  the 
people. 

The  Roman  plebs  at  first  formed  conspiracies  to 
restore  Tarquin.  They  afterwards  tried  to  set  up  ty¬ 
rants,  and  cast  their  eyes  by  turns  upon  Publicola, 
Spurius  Cassius,  and  Manlius.  The  accusation  which 
the  patricians  so  often  addressed  to  those  of  their  own 
order  who  became  popular,  cannot  have  been  pure 

1  Nicholas  of  Damascus,  Fraym.  Aristotle,  Pol.,  V.  9. 
Thucydides,  I.  126.  Diodorus,  IV.  6. 


864 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


calumny.  The  fear  of  the  great  attests  the  desire  of 
the  plebs. 

But  we  ought  to  remark  that,  if  the  people  in  Greece 
and  Rome  sought  to  restore  monarchy,  it  was  not  from 
real  attachment  to  this  sort  of  government.  They 
loved  tyrants  less  than  they  detested  aristocracy.  For 
them  the  monarchy  was  a  means  of  conquering  and 
avenging  themselves;  but  this  government,  which  was 
the  result  of  force  alone,  and  never  rested  upon  any 
sacred  tradition,  took  no  root  in  the  hearts  of  the  peo¬ 
ple.  They  set  up  a  tyrant  for  the  needs  of  the  strug¬ 
gle  ;  they  left  him  the  [tower  afterwards  from  gratitude 
or  from  necessity.  But  when  a  few  years  had  elapsed, 
and  the  recollection  of  the  hard  oligarchy  had  been 
effaced,  they  let  the  tyrant  fall.  This  government  never 
had  the  affection  of  the  Greeks  ;  they  accepted  it  only 
as  a  temporary  resource,  while  the  popular  party  should 
find  a  better  one  and  should  feel  strong  enough  to  gov¬ 
ern  itself. 

The  inferior  class  increased  by  degrees.  Progress 
sometimes  works  obscurely,  yet  decides  the  future  of  a 
class,  and  transforms  society.  About  the  sixth  century 
before  our  era,  Greece  and  Italy  saw  a  new  source  of 
riches  appear.  The  earth  no  longer  sufficed  for  all  the 
wants  of  man  ;  tastes  turned  towards  beauty  and  luxu¬ 
ry;  the  arts  sprang  up,  and  then  industry  and  commerce 
became  necessary.  Personal  property  was  created  by 
degrees  ;  coins  were  struck,  and  money  appeared. 
Now,  the  appearance  of  money  was  a  great  revolution. 
Money  was  not  subject  to  the  same  conditions  as  land¬ 
ed  property.  It  was,  according  to  the  expression  of 
the  lawyers,  res  nec  rnancipi ,  and  could  pass  from 
hand  to  hand  without  any  religious  formality,  and 
without  difficulty  could  reach  the  plebeians.  Religion, 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


365 


which  had  given  its  stamp  to  the  soil,  had  no  powei 
over  money. 

Men  of  the  lower  orders  now  learned  other  occupa¬ 
tions  besides  that  of  cultivating  the  earth  ;  there  were 
artisans,  sailors,  manufacturers,  and  merchants;  and 
soon  there  were  rich  men  among  them.  Here  was  a 
a  singular  novelty.  Previously,  the  chiefs  of  the  geutes 
alone  could  be  proprietors,  and  here  were  former  cli¬ 
ents  and  plebeians  who  were  rich  and  who  displayed 
their  wealth.  Then,  too,  the  luxury  which  enriched 
the  plebeian  impoverished  the  noble.  In  many  cities, 
especially  at  Athens,  were  a  part  of  the  aristocratic 
body  seen  to  become  miserably  poor.  Now,  in  a  soci¬ 
ety  where  wealth  is  changing  hands,  rank  is  in  danger 
of  being  overthrown.  Another  consequence  of  this 
change  was,  that  among  the  people  themselves,  distinc¬ 
tions  of  rank  arose,  as  must  happen  in  every  human 
society.  Some  families  were  prominent  ;  some  names 
increased  in  importance.  A  sort  of  aristocracy  was 
formed  among  the  people.  This  was  not  an  evil;  the 
people  ceased  to  be  a  confused  mass,  and  began  to  re¬ 
semble  a  well-constituted  body.  Having  rank  among 
themselves,  they  could  select  leaders  without  any  long¬ 
er  having  to  take  from  the  patricians  the  first  ambi¬ 
tious  man  who  wished  to  reign.  This  plebeian  aristoc¬ 
racy  soon  had  the  qualities  which  ordinarily  accompany 
wealth  acquired  by  labor — that  is  to  say,  the  feeling 
of  personal  worth,  the  love  of  tranquil  liberty,  and  that 
spirit  of  wisdom  which,  though  desiring  improve¬ 
ments,  fears  risking  too  much.  The  plebs  followed 
the  lead  of  this  new  aristocracy,  which  they  were  proud 
of  possessing.  They  renounced  tyrants  as  soon  as  they 
felt  that  they  possessed  among  themselves  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  a  better  government.  Indeed,  riches  became, 


366 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


for  some  time,  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by,  a  principle 
of  social  organization. 

There  is  one  other  change  of  which  we  must  speak, 
for  it  greatly  aided  the  lower  class  to  rise  —  the  change 
that  took  place  in  the  military  art.  In  the  first  ages 
of  the  history  of  cities,  the  strength  of  armies  was  in 
their  cavalry.  The  real  warrior  was  the  one  who 
fought  from  a  horse  or  from  a  chariot.  The  foot- 
soldier,  of  little  service  in  combat,  was  slightly  es¬ 
teemed.  The  ancient  aristocracy,  therefore,  every¬ 
where  reserved  to  themselves  the  right  to  fight  on 
horseback.1  In  some  cities  the  nobles  even  gave  them¬ 
selves  the  title  of  knights.  The  celeres  of  Romulus, 
the  Roman  knights  of  the  earlier  ages,  were  all  patri¬ 
cians.  Among  the  ancients  the  cavalry  was  always 
the  noble  arm.  But  by  degrees  infantry  became  more 
important.  Improvement  in  the  manufacture  of  arms, 
and  in  discipline,  enabled  it  to  resist  cavalry.  When 
this  point  was  reached,  infantry  took  the  first  rank  in 
battle,  for  it  was  more  manageable,  and  its  manœuvres 
easier.  The  legionaries  and  the  hoplites  thenceforth 
formed  the  main  strength  of  armies.  Now  the  legion¬ 
aries  and  the  hoplites  were  plebeians.  Add  to  this 
that  maritime  operations  became  more  extended,  es¬ 
pecially  in  Greece,  that  there  were  naval  battles,  and 
that  the  destiny  of  a  city  was  often  in  the  hands  of 
the  rowers  —  that  is  to  say,  of  the  plebeians.  Now,  a 
class  that  is  strong  enough  to  defend  a  people  is  strong 
enough  to  defend  its  rights,  and  to  exercise  a  legiti¬ 
mate  infiuence.  The  social  and  political  state  of  n 
nation  always  bears  a  certain  relation  to  the  nature  and 
composition  of  its  armies. 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VI.  3,  2. 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


367 


Finally,  the  inferior  class  succeeded  in  having  a  re¬ 
ligion  of  its  own.  These  men  had  in  their  hearts,  we 
may  suppose,  that  religious  sentiment  which  is  insepa¬ 
rable  from  our  nature,  and  which  renders  adoration 
and  prayer  necessary  to  us.  They  suffered,  therefore, 
to  find  themselves  shut  out  from  all  religion  by  thî 
ancient  principle  which  prescribed  that  every  god 
belonged  to  a  family,  and  that  the  right  of  prayer  wa* 
transmitted  with  the  blood.  They  strove,  therefore, 
to  have  a  worship  of  their  own. 

It  is  impossible  to  enter  here  into  the  details  of  the 
efforts  that  they  made,  of  the  means  which  they  in¬ 
vented,  of  the  difficulties  or  the  resources  that  occurred 
to  them.  This  work,  for  a  long  time  a  separate  study 
for  each  individual,  was  long  the  secret  of  each  mind; 
we  can  see  only  the  results.  Sometimes  a  plebeian 
family  set  up  a  hearth  of  its  own,  whether  it  dared  to 
fight  the  fire  itself  or  procured  the  sacred  fire  else¬ 
where.  Then  it  had  its  worship,  its  sanctuary,  its  pro¬ 
tecting  divinity,  and  its  priesthood,  in  imitation  of  the 
patrician  family.  Sometimes  the  plebeian,  without  hav¬ 
ing  any  domestic  worship,  had  recourse  to  the  temples 
of  the  citv.  At  Rome  those  who  had  no  sacred  fire,  and 
consequently  no  domestic  festival,  offered  their  annual 
sacrifices  to  the  god  Quirinus.1  When  the  upper  class 
persisted  in  driving  the  lower  orders  from  the  temples, 
the  latter  built  temples  of  their  own.  At  Rome  they  had 
one  on  the  Aventine,  which  was  sacred  to  Diana;  they 
also  had  the  temple  of  Plebeian  Modesty.  The  Oriental 
worships,  which  began  in  the  sixth  century  to  overrun 
Greece  and  Italy,  were  eagerly  received  by  the  plebs; 
these  were  forms  of  worship  which,  like  Buddhism, 


1  Varro,  L.  L VI.  13. 


368 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


excluded  no  caste,  or  people.  Often,  too,  the  plebeians 
would  make  themselves  gods,  like  those  of  the  patrician 
curies  and  tribes.  Thus  king  Servius  erected  an  altar 
in  every  quarter  of  the  city,  so  that  the  multitude  might 
have  places  to  sacrifice  ;  just  as  Peisistratus  set  up 
Hermæ  in  the  streets  and  squares  of  Athens.1  Those 
were  the  gods  of  the  democracy.  The  plebeians,  pre¬ 
viously  a  multitnde  without  worship,  thenceforth  had 
religious  ceremonies  and  festivals.  They  could  pray  ; 
this  in  a  society  where  religion  made  the  dignity  of  man 
was  a  great  deal. 

When  once  the  lower  orders  had  gained  these  points  ; 
when  they  had  among  themselves  rich  men,  soldiers, 
and  priests;  when  they  had  gained  all  that  gave  man  a 
sense  of  his  own  worth  and  strength  ;  when,  in  fine,  they 
had  compelled  the  aristocracy  to  consider  them  of  some 
account,  —  it  was  impossible  to  keep  them  out  of  social 
and  political  life,  and  the  city  could  be  closed  to  them 
no  longer. 

The  entry  of  this  inferior  class  into  the  city  was  a 
revolution,  which,  from  the  seventh  to  the  filth  century» 
filled  the  history  of  Greece  and  Italy. 

The  efforts  of  the  people  were  every  where  successful, 
but  not  everywhere  in  the  same  manner,  or  by  the  same 
means.  In  some  cases  the  people,  as  soon  as  they  felt 
themselves  to  be  strong,  rose,  sword  in  hand,  and  forced 
the  gates  of  the  city  where  they  had  been  forbidden  to 
live.  Once  masters,  they  either  drove  out  the  nobles 
and  occupied  their  houses,  or  contented  themselves 
with  proclaiming  an  equality  of  rights.  This  is  what 
happened  at  Syracuse,  at  Erythræ,  and  at  Miletus. 

In  other  cases,  on  the  contrary,  the  peojile  employed 

1  Dionysius,  IV.  5.  Plato,  Hipparchus. 


\ 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


369 


means  less  violent.  Without  an  armed  struggle,  and 
merely  by  the  moral  force  which  their  last  step  had 
given  them,  they  constrained  the  great  to  make  con¬ 
cessions.  They  then  appointed  a  legislator,  and  the 
constitution  was  changed.  This  was  the  course  of 
events  at  Athens. 

Sometimes  the  inferior  class  arrived  by  degrees,  and 
without  any  shock,  at  its  object.  Thus,  at  Cumae,  the 
number  of  members  of  the  city,  very  few  in  the  begin¬ 
ning,  was  increased  at  first  by  the  admission  of  those 
of  the  people  who  were  rich  enough  to  keep  a  horse. 
Later  the  number  of  citizens  was  raised  to  one  thousand, 
and  by  degrees  the  city  reached  a  democratic  form  of 
government.1 

In  a  few  cities,  the  admission  of  the  plebs  among 
the  citizens  was  the  work  of  the  kings;  this  was  the 
case  at  Rome.  In  others  it  was  the  work  of  popular 
tyrants,  as  at  Corinth,  at  Sicyon,  and  at  Argos.  When 
the  aristocracy  regained  the  supremacy,  they  generally 
had  the  good  sense  to  leave  to  the  lower  orders  the 
rights  of  citizens  which  the  kings  or  tyrants  had  given 
them.  At  Samos  the  aristocracy  did  not  succeed  in 
its  struggle  with  the  tyrants  until  it  had  freed  the  lower 
classes.  It  would  occupy  us  too  long  to  enumerate  all 
the  different  forms  under  which  this  great  revolution 
appeared.  The  result  was  everywhere  the  same  ;  the 
inferior  class  entered  the  city,  and  became  a  part  of 
the  body  politic. 

The  poet  Theognis  has  given  us  a  very  clear  idea  of 
this  revolution,  and  of  its  consequences.  He  tells  us 
that  in  Megara,  his  country,  there  were  two  sorts  of 
men.  He  calls  one  the  class  of  the  good ,  àyuôol  ;  this, 

1  Heracleideg  of  Pontus.  Fragm .,  coll.  Didot,  t.  11,  p.  217. 

24 


370 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


indeed,  is  the  name  which  they  took  in  most  of  the 
Greek  cities.  The  other  he  calls  the  class  of  the  bad , 
xaxol  ;  this,  too,  is  the  name  by  which  it  was  custom¬ 
ary  to  designate  the  inferior  class.  The  poet  describes 
the  ancient  condition  of  this  class:  “Formerly  it  knew 
neither  tribunals  nor  laws;”  this  is  as  much  as  to  say 
that  it  had  not  the  right  of  the  citizenship.  These  men 
were  not  even  permitted  to  approach  the  city  ;  “  they 
lived  without,  like  wild  beasts.”  They  took  no  part  in 
the  religious  repasts;  they  had  not  the  right  to  marry 
into  the  families  of  the  good . 

But  how  changed  is  all  this  !  Rank  has  been  over¬ 
thrown  ;  “the  bad  have  been  placed  above  the  good.” 
Justice  is  disturbed  ;  the  ancient  laws  are  no  more,  and 
laws  of  strange  novelty  have  replaced  them.  Riches 
have  become  the  only  object  of  men’s  desires,  because 
wealth  gives  power.  The  man  of  noble  race  marries 
the  daughter  of  the  rich  plebeian,  and  “  marriage  con¬ 
founds  the  races.” 

Theognis,  who  belonged  to  an  aristocratic  family, 
vainly  strove  to  resist  the  course  of  events.  Con¬ 
demned  to  exile,  and  despoiled  of  his  property,  he  could 
no  longer  protest  and  fight  except  in  his  verses.  But 
if  he  no  longer  hoped  for  success,  at  least  he  never 
doubted  the  justice  of  his  cause.  He  accepted  defeat, 
but  he  still  preserved  a  sense  of  his  rights.  In  his 
eyes,  the  revolution  which  had  taken  place  was  a  moral 
evil,  a  crime.  A  son  of  the  aristocracy,  it  seemed  to 
him  that  this  revolution  had  on  its  side  neither  justice 
nor  the  gods,  and  that  it  was  an  attempt  against  re¬ 
ligion.  “The  gods,”  he  says,  “have  quitted  the  earth; 
no  one  fears  them.  The  race  of  pious  men  has  dis¬ 
appeared  ;  no  one  now  cares  for  the  Immortals.” 

But  these  regrets  are  useless,  and  he  knows  it  welL 


CU AP.  vn.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


371 


If  lie  complains  thus,  it  is  as  a  sort  of  pious  duty  ;  it  is 
because  he  has  received  from  the  ancients  “  the  holy 
tradition,”  and  his  duty  is  to  perpetuate  it.  But  he 
labors  in  vain  ;  the  tradition  itself  will  perish  ;  the  sons 
of  the  nobles  will  forget  their  nobility  ;  soon  all  will  be 
seen  united  by  marriage  to  plebeian  families;  “they 
will  drink  at  their  festivals  and  eat  at  their  tables  ”  ; 
they  will  soon  adopt  their  sentiments.  In  Theognis’ 
time,  regret  was  all  that  was  left  for  the  Greek  aristoc- 
racy,  and  even  this  regret  was  soon  to  disappear. 

In  fact,  after  Theognis  the  nobility  were  nothing  but 
a  recollection.  The  great  families  continued  piously 
to  preserve  the  domestic  worship  and  the  memory  of 
their  ancestors,  but  this  was  all.  There  were  still  men 
who  amused  themselves  by  counting  their  ancestors; 
but  such  men  were  ridiculed.  They  preserved  the  cus¬ 
tom  of  inscribing  upon  some  tombs  that  the  deceased 
was  of  noble  race,  but  no  attempt  was  made  to  restore 
a  system  forever  fallen.  Isocrates  said,  with  truth,  that 
in  his  time  the  great  families  of  Athens  no  longer  ex¬ 
isted  except  in  their  tombs. 

Thus  the  ancient  city  was  transformed  by  degrees. 
In  the  beginning  it  was  an  association  of  some  hundred 
chiefs  of  families.  Later  the  number  of  citizens  in¬ 
creased,  because  the  younger  branches  obtained  a 
position  of  equality.  Later  still,  the  freed  clients,  the 
plebs,  all  that  multitude  which,  during  centuries,  had 
remained  outside  the  political  and  religious  association, 
sometimes  even  outside  the  sacred  enclosure  of  the 
city,  broke  down  the  barriers  which  were  opposed  to 
them,  and  penetrated  into  the  city,  where  they  im¬ 
mediately  became  the  h*  asters. 


372 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


2.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Athens. 

The  Eupatrids,  after  the  overthrow  of  royalty,  gov¬ 
erned  Athens  during  four  centuries.  Upon  this  long 
dominion  history  is  silent  ;  we  know  only  one  fact  —  that 
it  was  odious  to  the  lower  orders,  and  that  the  people 
tried  to  change  the  government. 

In  the  year  598,  the  discontent,  which  appeared 
general,  and  certain  signs  which  showed  a  revolution 
to  be  at  hand,  aroused  the  ambition  of  a  Eupatrid, 
Cylon,  who  undertook  to  overthrow  the  government 
of  his  caste,  and  to  establish  himself  as  a  popular 
tyrant.  The  energy  of  the  archons  frustrated  the  en¬ 
terprise,  but  the  agitation  continued  after  him.  In 
vain  the  Eupatrids  employed  all  the  resources  of  their 
religion.  In  vain  did  they  announce  that  the  gods 
were  irritated,  and  that  spectres  had  appeared.  In  vain 
did  they  purify  the  city  from  the  crimes  of  the  people, 
and  raise  two  altars  to  Violence  and  Insolence  to  ap¬ 
pease  these  two  divinities,  whose  malign  influence  had 
agitated  all  minds.1  All  this  was  to  no  purpose.  The 
feeling  of  hatred  was  not  appeased.  They  brought 
from  Crete  the  pious  Epimenides,  a  mysterious  person¬ 
age,  who  was  said  to  be  the  son  of  a  goddess,  and  he 
performed  a  series  of  expiatory  ceremonies  ;  they  hoped, 
by  thus  striking  the  imaginations  of  the  people,  to 
revive  religion,  and  consequently  to  fortify  the  aristoc¬ 
racy.  But  the  people  were  not  moved  ;  the  religion 
of  the  Eupatrids  no  longer  had  any  influence  upon  their 
minds;  they  persisted  in  demanding  reform. 

For  sixteen  years  longer  the  fierce  opj>osition  of  the 

1  Diogenes  Laertius,  I.  110.  Cicero,  De  Leg.,  II.  11.  Athe- 
ûæus,  p.  G02. 


CHAP.  VII  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


37a 


peasants  of  the  mountain  and  the  patient  opposition  of 
the  rich  men  of  the  shore  waged  war  against  the  Eu- 
patrids.  Finally,  those  who  were  wisest  among  the 
three  parties  agreed  to  intrust  to  Solon  the  care  of 
terminating  the  discords,  and  of  preventing  still  greater 
misfortunes.  Solon  had  the  rare  fortune  to  bêlons:  at 
the  same  time  to  the  Eupatrids  by  birth,  and  to  the 
merchants  by  the  occupation  of  his  earlier  years.  His 
poetry  exhibits  him  to  us  as  a  man  entirely  free  from 
the  prejudice  of  caste.  By  his  conciliatory  spirit,  by 
his  taste  for  wealth  and  luxury,  by  his  love  of  pleasure, 
he  was  far  removed  from  the  old  Eupatrids.  He 
belonged  to  new  Athens. 

We  have  said  above  that  Solon  began  by  freeing  the 
land  from  the  old  domination  which  the  religion  of 
the  Eupatrid  families  had  exercised  over  it.  He  broke 
the  chains  of  clientsbip.  So  great  a  change  in  the 
social  state  brought  with  it  another  in  the  political 
order. 

The  lower  orders  needed  thenceforth,  according  to 
the  expression  of  Solon  himself,  a  shield  to  defend  their 
newly-found  liberty.  This  shield  was  political  rights. 

Solon’s  constitution  is  far  from  being  well  known  to 
us;  it  appears,  however,  that  all  the  Athenians  made 
from  that  time  a  part  of  the  assembly  of  the  people, 
and  that  the  senate  was  no  longer  composed  of  Eupa¬ 
trids  alone;  it  appears  even  that  the  archons  could  be 
elected  outside  the  ancient  priestly  caste.  These  grave 
innovations  destroyed  all  the  ancient  rules  of  the  city. 
The  right  of  suffrage,  magistracies,  priesthood,  the 
direction  of  society,  all  these  had  to  be  shared  by  the 
Eupatrid  with  the  inferior  caste.  In  the  new  constitu¬ 
tion  no  account  was  taken  of  the  rights  of  primogeni¬ 
ture.  There  were  still  classes,  but  men  were  no  longer 


374 


PHE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


distinguished  except  by  wealth.  The  rule  of  the  Eu- 
patrids  disappeared.  The  Eupatrid  was  no  longer  of 
any  account,  unless  he  was  rich;  he  had  influence 
through  his  wealth,  and  not  through  birth.  Thence¬ 
forth  the  poet  could  say,  “  In  poverty  the  noble  is  of 
no  account,”  and  the  people  applauded  iu  the  theatre 
this  line  of  the  poet  •  “  Of  what  rank  is  this  man  ? — 
Rich,  for  those  are  now  the  noble.”  1 

The  system  which  was  thus  founded  had  two  sorts 
of  enemies  —  the  Eupatrids,  who  regretted  their  lost 
privileges,  and  the  poor,  who  still  suffered  from  the 
inequality  of  their  rank. 

Hardly  had  Solon  finished  his  work  when  agitation 
recommenced.  “The  poor,”  says  Plutarch,  “showed 
themselves  the  fierce  enemies  of  the  rich.”  The  new 
government  displeased  them,  perhaps,  quite  as  much 
as  that  of  the  Eupatrids.  Besides,  seeing  that  the 
Eupatrids  could  still  be  archons  and  senators,  many 
imagined  that  the  revolution  had  not  been  complete. 
Solon  had  maintained  the  republican  forms  ;  now  the 
people  still  entertained  a  blind  hatred  against  these 
forms  of  government  under  which  they  had  seen,  for 
four  centuries,  nothing  but  the  reign  of  the  aristocracy. 
Alter  the  example  of  many  Greek  cities,  they  wished 
for  a  tyrant. 

Peisistratus,  a  Eupatrid,  but  following  his  own  per¬ 
sonal  ambition,  promised  the  poor  a  division  of  the 
lands,  and  attached  them  to  himself.  One  day  he  ap¬ 
peared  in  the  assembly,  and,  pretending  that  he  had 
been  wounded,  asked  for  a  guard.  The  men  of  the 
higher  classes  were  about  to  reply  and  unveil  his  false¬ 
hood,  but  “the  people  were  ready  to  resort  to  violence 


1  Euripides,  Phaniss.  Alexis,  in  Athenæus,  IV.  49. 


CHAI  .  viï. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTEK  THE  CITY. 


375 


to  sustain  Peisistratus  ;  the  rich,  seeing  this,  fled  in  dis¬ 
order.”  Thus  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  popular  as¬ 
sembly  recently  established  was  to  enable  a  man  to 
become  master  of  his  country. 

But  it  does  not  appear  that  the  reign  of  Peisistratus 
offered  any  check  to  the  development  of  the  destinies 
of  Athens.  Its  principal  effect,  on  the  contrary,  was 
to  guarantee  this  great  social  and  political  reform, 
which  had  just  taken  place,  against  a  reaction.  The 
Eupatrids  never  regained  their  lost  power. 

The  people  showed  themselves  little  desirous  of  re¬ 
covering  their  liberty.  Twice  a  coalition  of  the  great 
and  the  rich  overthrew  Peisistratus;  twice  he  returned 
to  power,  and  his  sons  governed  Athens  after  him. 
The  intervention  of  the  Lacedæmonian  army  was  re¬ 
quired  in  Attica  to  put  an  end  to  this  family’s  rule. 

The  ancient  aristocracy  had  for  a  moment  the  hope 
of  profiting  by  the  fall  of  Peisistratus,  and  regaining 
its  privileges.  They  not  only  failed  of  this,  but  re¬ 
ceived  a  still  ruder  blow.  Cleisthenes,  who  belonged 
to  this  class,  but  who  was  of  a  family  which  it  had 
covered  with  opprobrium,  and  had  seemed  to  reject  for 
three  generations,  found  the  surest  means  of  taking 
away  the  little  of  its  power  that  still  remained.  Solon» 
in  changing  the  constitution,  had  retained  the  old  reli¬ 
gious  organization  of  Athenian  society.  The  population 
remained  divided  into  two  or  three  hundred  gentes, 
into  twelve  phratries,  and  four  tribes.  In  each  one  of 
these  groups  there  were,  as  in  the  preceding  period,  an 
hereditary  worship,  a  priest,  who  was  a  Eupatrid,  and 
a  chief,  who  was  the  same  as  the  priest.  All  this  was 
a  relic  of  the  past,  which  disappeared  slowly.  Through 
this  the  traditions,  the  usages,  the  rules,  the  distinc¬ 
tions  that  existed  in  the  old  social  state,  were  perpetu- 


376 


THE  EE  VOLUTION'S. 


B(  OK  IV. 


ated.  All  these  had  been  established  by  religion,  and 
in  their  turn  they  maintained  religion  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  power  of  the  great  families.  There  were  in  each 
of  these  organizations  two  classes  of  men.  On  the 
one  side  were  the  Eupatrids,  who  had,  by  right  of 
birth,  the  priesthood  and  the  authority;  on  the  other, 
men  of  an  inferior  condition,  who  were  no  longer  either 
slaves  or  clients,  but  who  were  still  retained  by  reli¬ 
gion  under  the  authority  of  the  Eupatrids.  In  vain  did 
the  laws  of  Solon  declare  that  all  Athenians  were  free. 
The  old  religion  seized  a  man  as  he  went  out  of  the 
assembly  where  he  had  voted  freely,  and  said  to  him, 
“.Thou  art  bound  to  the  Eupatrid  through  worship; 
thou  owest  him  respect,  deference,  submission  ;  as  a 
member  of  the  city,  Solon  has  freed  thee;  but  as  a 
member  of  a  tribe,  thou  obeyest  the  Eupatrid  ;  as  a 
member  of  a  phratry,  thou  also  hast  a  Eupatrid  for  a 
chief;  in  the  family  itself,  in  the  gens  where  thou  wert 
born,  and  which  thou  canst  not  leave,  thou  still  findest 
the  authority  of  the  Eupatrid.”  Of  what  avail  was  it 
that  the  political  law  had  made  a  citizen  of  this  man, 
if  religion  and  manners  persisted  in  making  him  a  cli¬ 
ent?  For  several  generations,  it  is  true,  many  men 
lived  outside  these  organizations,  whether  they  had 
come  from  foreign  countries,  or  had  escaped  from  the 
gens  and  the  tribe,  to  be  free.  But  these  men  suffered 
in  another  way  ;  they  found  themselves  in  a  state  of 
moral  inferiority  compared  with  other  men,  and  a  sort 
of  ignominy  was  attached  to  their  independence. 
There  was,  therefore,  after  the  political  reform  of  So¬ 
lon,  another  reform  to  be  made  in  the  domain  of  reli¬ 
gion.  Cleisthenes  accomplished  it  by  suppressing  the 
four  old  religious  tribes,  and  replacing  them  with  tec 
tribes,  whic  ^  'uto  demes. 


CHAP.  VIL.  THE  PLEBS  ENTEE  THE  CITY. 


377 


These  tribes  and  denies  resembled  in  appearance  the 
ancient  tribes  and  gentes.  In  each  one  of  these  or¬ 
ganizations  there  were  a  worship,  a  priest,  a  judge, 
assemblies  for  religious  ceremonies,  and  assemblies  to 
deliberate  upon  the  common  interests.1  But  the  new 
groups  differed  from  the  old  in  two  essential  points. 
First,  all  the  free  men  of  Athens,  even  those  who 
had  not  belonged  to  the  old  tribes  and  gentes,  were 
included  in  the  divisions  of  Cleisthenes.2  This  was  a 
great  reform  ;  it  gave  a  worship  to  those  who  before 
had  none,  and  included  in  a  religious  association  those 
who  had  previously  been  excluded  from  every  associa¬ 
tion.  In  the  second  place,  men  were  distributed  in 
ihe  tribes  and  denies,  not  according  to  birth,  as  for¬ 
merly,  but  according  to  their  locality.  Birth  was  of 
no  account;  men  were  equal,  and  privileges  were  no 
longer  known.  The  worship  for  which  the  new  tribe 
and  deme  were  established  was  no  longer  the  heredita¬ 
ry  worship  of  an  ancient  family  ;  men  no  longer  assem¬ 
bled  around  the  hearth  of  a  Eupatrid.  The  tribe  or 
deme  no  longer  venerated  an  ancient  Eupatrid  as  a 
divine  ancestor  ;  the  tribes  had  new  eponymous  heroes 
chosen  from  among  the  ancient  personages  of  whom 
the  people  had  preserved  a  grateful  recollection,  and  as 
for  the  denies,  they  uniformly  adopted  as  their  protect¬ 
ing  gods  Zeus,  the  (juuTclian  of  the  walls ,  and  the  patev - 
nal  Apollo.  Henceforth  there  was  no  reason  why  the 
priesthood  should  be  hereditary  in  the  deme,  as  it  had 
been  in  the  gens,  or  why  the  priest  should  always  be 
a  Eupatrid.  In  the  new  groups  the  priestly  office,  as 

1  Æschines,  in  Ctesiph.,  30.  Demosthenes,  in  Eubul.  Pol¬ 
lux,  VIII.  19,  95,  107. 

2  Aristotle,  Politics,  III.  1,  10;  VII.  2.  Scholiast  on  Æs¬ 
chines,  edit.  Didot,  p.  511. 


378 


THE  KEY OLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


well  as  that  of  the  chief,  was  annual,  and  every  mem¬ 
ber  might  enjoy  it  in  his  turn. 

This  reform  completed  the  overthrow  of  the  aristoc¬ 
racy  of  the  Eupatrids.  From  this  time  there  was  no 
longer  a  religious  caste,  no  longer  any  privileges  of 
birth,  either  in  religion  or  in  politics.  Athenian  socie¬ 
ty  was  completely  transformed.1 

Now,  the  suppression  of  the  old  tribes,  replaced  by 
new  ones,  to  which  all  men  had  access,  and  in  which 
they  were  equal,  was  not  a  fact  peculiar  to  the  history 
of  Athens.  The  same  change  took  place  at  Cyrene, 
Sicyon,  Elis,  and  Sparta,  and  probably  in  many  other 
Greek  cities.2  Of  all  the  means  calculated  to  weaken 
the  ancient  aristocracy,  Aristotle  saw  none  more  effi¬ 
cacious  than  this  :  “  If  one  wished  to  found  a  democ¬ 
racy,”  he  says,  “  he  would  proceed  as  Cleisthenes  did 
at  Athens;  he  would  establish  new  tribes  and  new 
phratries  ;  for  the  hereditary  family  sacrifices  he  would 
substitute  sacrifices  where  all  men  might  be  admitted, 
and  he  would  associate  and  blend  the  people  together 
as  much  as  possible,  being  careful  to  break  up  all  ante¬ 
rior  associations.”  3 

When  this  reform  has  been  accomplished  in  all  the 
cities,  it  may  be  said  that  the  ancient  mould  of  society 
has  been  broken,  and  that  a  new  social  body  has  been 
formed.  This  change  in  the  organizations  which  the 
ancient  hereditary  religion  had  established,  and  which 

1  The  ancient  phratries  and  the  ylvr\  were  not  suppressed; 
they  continued,  on  the  contrary,  down  to  the  close  of  Greek 
history;  but  they  were  thenceforth  only  religious  bodies,  and  of 
no  account  politically. 

2  Herodotus,  V.  67,  68.  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VII.  2,  11.  Pau- 
sanias,  V.  9. 

3  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VII.  3,  11  (VI.  3). 


s 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITV  . 


379 


it  had  declared  immutable,  marks  the  end  of  the  reli¬ 
gious  government  of  the  city. 

3.  History  of  this  Revolution  at  Rome. 

At  Rome  the  plebs  had  a  great  influence  at  an 
early  date.  The  situation  of  the  city,  between  the 
Latins,  the  Sabines,  and  the  Etruscans,  condemned  it 
to  perpetual  war,  and  war  required  that  there  should 
be  a  numerous  population.  The  kings,  therefore,  had 
welcomed  and  invited  all  foreigners,  without  regard  to 
their  origin.  Wars  succeeded  each  other  without  in- 
termission,  and  as  there  was  a  need  of  men,  the  most 
common  result  of  every  victory  was  to  take  away  the 
inhabitants  of  the  conquered  city  and  transfer  them  to 
Rome.  What  became  of  these  men,  brought  with  the 
booty  ?  If  there  were  found  among  them  patrician 
and  priestly  families,  the  patricians  hastened  to  associ¬ 
ate  them  with  themselves.  As  to  the  multitude,  some 
of  them  became  the  clients  of  the  great,  or  of  the 
king,  and  a  part  were  left  writh  the  plebs. 

Still  other  elements  entered  into  the  composition  of 
this  class.  Many  foreigners  flocked  to  Rome,  as  a 
place  whose  situation  rendered  it  convenient  for  com¬ 
merce.  The  discontented  among  the  Sabines,  the 
Etruscans,  and  the  Latins,  found  a  refuge  there.  All 
this  class  joined  the  plebs.  The  client  who  succeeded 
in  escaping  from  the  gens  became  a  plebeian.  The 
patrician,  who  formed  a  misalliance,  or  was  guilty  of 
any  crime  that  lost  him  his  rank,  fell  into  the  inferior 
class.  Every  bastard  was  cast  out  by  religion  from 
pure  families,  and  counted  among  the  plebs. 

For  ad  these  reasons  the  plebs  increased  in  numbers. 
The  sV  ggle  which  had  begun  between  the  patricians 


380 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


and  the  king  increased  their  importance.  The  kings 
and  the  plebs  early  felt  that  they  had  the  same  ene¬ 
mies.  The  ambition  of  the  kings  was  to  cut  loose 
from  the  old  principles  of  government,  which  limited 
the  exercise  of  their  power.  The  ambition  of  the  ple¬ 
beians  was  to  break  the  ancn-nt  barriers  which  exclud¬ 
ed  them  from  the  religious  and  political  associations. 
A  tacit  alliance  was  established  —  the  kings  protected 
the  plebs,  and  the  plebs  sustained  the  kings. 

The  traditions  and  testimony  of  antiquity  place  the 
great  progress  of  the  plebeians  under  the  reign  of  Ser¬ 
vais.  The  hatred  which  the  patricians  preserved  for 
this  king  sufficiently  shows  what  his  policy  was.  His 
first  reform  was  to  give  lands  to  the  plebeians,  not,  it 
is  true,  in  the  ager  Romanus ,  but  in  the  territory 
taken  from  the  enemy  ;  still,  this  conferring  the  right 
to  own  land  upon  families  that  had  previously  cultivat¬ 
ed  only  the  fields  of  others  was  none  the  less  an  in¬ 
novation.1 

What  was  graver  still  was,  that  he  published  laws 
for  the  plebs,  which  had  never  been  done  before.  These 
laws,  for  the  most  part,  related  to  obligations  which  the 
plebeian  might  contract  with  the  patrician.  It  was  the 
commencement  of  a  common  law  between  the  two 
orders,  and  for  the  plebs  it  was  the  commencement  of 
equality.2 

Later  this  same  king  established  a  new  division  in 
the  city.  Without  destroying  the  three  ancient  tribes, 
where  the  patrician  families  and  clients  were  classed 

1  Livy,  I.  47.  Dionysius,  IV.  13.  The  preceding  kings 
had  already  distributed  the  lands  taken  from  the  enemy  ;  but  it 
is  not  certain  that  they  admitted  the  plebs  to  share  in  the  di¬ 
vision. 

*  Dionysius,  IV.  13;  IV.  43. 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


381 


according  to  rank,  he  formed  four  new  tribes,  in  which 
the  entire  population  was  distributed  according  to  resi¬ 
dence.  We  have  seen  this  reform  at  Athens,  and  we 
know  what  were  its  effects;  they  were  the  same  at 
Rome.  The  plebeians,  who  did  not  enter  the  ancient 
tribes,  were  admitted  into  the  new  ones.1  This  multi¬ 
tude,  up  to  that  time  a  floating  mass,  a  species  of  no¬ 
madic  population  that  had  no  connection  with  the  city 
had  thenceforth  its  fixed  divisions  and  its  regular  or¬ 
ganization.  The  formation  of  these  tribes,  in  v  hich  the 
two  orders  were  mingled,  really  marked  the  entrance 
of  the  plebs  into  the  city.  Every  tribe  had  a  hearth 
and  sacrifices.  Servius  established  Lares  in  every  pub¬ 
lic  place  of  the  city,  in  every  district  of  the  country. 
They  served  as  divinities  for  those  who  had  no  rank. 
The  plebeian  celebrated  the  religious  festivals  of  his 
quarter,  and  of  his  burgh  ( compitcilia ,  paganalia ),  as 
the  patrician  celebrated  the  sacrifice  of  his  gens  and 
of  his  cury.  The  plebeian  had  a  religion. 

At  the  same  time  a  great  change  took  place  in  the 
sacred  ceremony  of  the  lustration.  Ihe  people  were 
no  longer  ranged  by  curies,  to  the  exclusion  of  those 
whom  the  curies  did  not  admit.  All  the  free  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  Rome,  all  those  who  formed  a  part  of  the  new 
tribes,  figured  in  the  sacred  act.  For  the  first  time  all 
men,  without  distinction  of  patrician,  or  client,  or  ple¬ 
beian,  were  united.  The  king  walked  around  this 
mixed  assembly,  driving  victims  befoie  him,  and  sing¬ 
ing  solemn  hymns.  The  ceremony  finished,  all  alike 
found  themselves  citizens. 

Before  Servius,  only  two  classes  of  men  were  dis¬ 
tinguished  at  Rome  —  the  sacerdotal  caste  of  pati  i* 


1  Dionysius,  I.  26. 


38ü 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


cians  with  their  clients,  and  the  plebeian  class.  No 
other  distinction  was  known  than  that  which  religion 
had  established.  Servius  marked  a  new  division,  which 
had  wealth  for  its  foundation.  He  divided  the  inhab¬ 
itants  of  Rome  into  two  great  categories;  in  the  one 
were  those  who  owned  property,  in  the  other  those 
who  had  nothing.  The  first  was  divided  into  five 
classes,  in  which  men  were  divided  off  according  to  the 
amount  of  their  fortune.1  By  this  means  Servius  in¬ 
troduced  an  entirely  new  principle  into  Roman  society; 
wealth  began  to  indicate  rank,  as  religion  had  done 
before. 

Servius  applied  this  division  of  the  Roman  popula¬ 
tion  to  the  military  service.  Before  him,  if  the  plebe¬ 
ians  fought,  it  was  not  in  the  ranks  of  the  legion.  But 
as  Servius  had  made  proprietors  and  citizens  of  them, 
he  could  also  make  them  legionaries.  From  this  time 
the  army  was  no  longer  composed  of  men  exclusively 
from  the  curies;  all  free  men,  all  those  at  least  who 
had  property,  made  a  part  of  it,  and  the  poor  alone 
continued  to  be  excluded.  The  rank  of  patrician  or 
client  no  longer  determined  the  armor  of  each  soldier 
and  his  post  in  battle  ;  the  army  was  divided  by  classes, 
exactly  like  the  population,  according  to  wealth.  The 
first  class,  which  had  complete  armor,  and  the  two  fol¬ 
lowing,  which  had  at  least  the  shield,  the  helmet,  and 

1  Modern  historians  generally  reckon  six  classes.  In  reality 
there  were  but  five  :  Cicero,  De  Repub.,  II.  22;  Aulus  Gellius, 
X.  28.  The  knights  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  proletarii ,  poor 
inhabitants,  on  the  other,  were  not  counted  in  the  classes.  We 
must  note,  moreover,  that  the  word  classis  had  not,  in  the  an¬ 
cient  language,  a  sense  similar  to  our  word  class;  it  was  applied 
to  a  military  body;  and  this  shows  that  the  division  established 
by  Servius  was  rather  military  than  political. 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


383 


the  sword,  formed  the  three  first  lines  of  the  legion. 
The  fourth  and  the  fifth,  being  light-armed,  made  up 
the  body  of  skirmishers  and  slingers.  Each  class  was 
divided  into  companies,  called  centuries.  The  first  of 
these  consisted,  we  are  told,  of  eighty  men  ;  the  four 
others  twenty  or  thirty  each.  The  cavalry  was  a  sepa¬ 
rate  body,  and  in  this  arm  also  Servi  us  made  a  great 
innovation.  Whilst  up  to  that  time  the  young  patii- 
cians  alone  made  up  the  centuries  of  the  knights,  Ser¬ 
vi  us  admitted  a  certain  number  of  plebeians,  chosen 
from  the  wealthiest,  to  fight  on  horseback,  and  formed 
of  these  twelve  new  centuries. 

Now,  the  army  could  not  be  touched  without  at  the 
same  time  modifying  the  political  constitution.  The 
plebeians  felt  that  their  importance  in  the  state  had  in¬ 
creased  :  they  had  arms,  discipline,  and  chiefs;  every 
century  had  its  centurion  and  its  sacred  ensign.  This 
military  organization  wras  permanent;  peace  did  not 
dissolve  it.  The  soldiers,  it  is  true,  on  their  return  from 
a  campnign,  quitted  their  ranks,  as  the  law  forbade 
them  to  enter  the  city  in  military  order.  But  after¬ 
wards,  at  the  first  signal,  the  citizens  resumed  their 
arms  in  the  Campus  Martius ,  where  each  returned  to 
his  century,  his  centurion,  and  his  banner.  Now,  it 
happened,  twenty-five  years  after  Servius  Tullius,  the 
army  was  called  together  without  any  intention  of 
making  a  military  expedition.  The  army  being  as¬ 
sembled,  and  the  men  having  taken  their  ranks,  every 
century  having  its  centurion  at  its  head,  and  its  ensign 
in  the  centre,  the  magistrate  spoke,  proposed  laws, 
and  took  a  vote.  The  six  patrician  centuries  and  the 
twelve  of  the  plebeian  knights  voted  first;  after  them 
the  centuries  of  infantry  of  the  first  class,  and  the  others 
in  turn.  Thus  was  established  in  a  short  time  the 


384 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  1'7 


comitia  centuriata ,  where  every  soldiei  had  the  right 
of  suffrage,  and  where  the  plebeian  and  the  patrician 
were  hardly  distinguished.1 

All  these  reforms  made  a  singular  change  in  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  the  Roman  city.  The  patricians  remained, 
with  their  hereditary  worship,  their  curies,  their  senate. 
But  the  plebeians  became  accustomed  to  indepen¬ 
dence,  wealth,  arms,  and  religion.  The  plebs  were  not 
confounded  with  the  patricians,  but  became  strong  by 
the  side  of  them. 

The  patricians,  it  is  true,  took  their  revenge.  They 
commenced  by  killing  Servius;  later,  they  banished 

1  It  appears  to  us  incontestable  that  the  comitia  oy  centurns 
were  identical  with  the  Roman  army.  What  proves  this  is,  first, 
that  this  assembly  is  often  called  the  army  by  Latin  writers 
urbanus  exercitus  (Varro,  VI.  93)  ;  quum  com.itiorum  causa  exer - 
citus  eductus  esset  (Livy,  XXXIX.  15)  ;  miles  ad  suffragia  voca- 
tur  et  comitia  centuriata  dicuntur  (Ampelius,  48)  :  second,  that 
these  comitia  were  convoked  exactly  as  the  army  was  when  it 
entered  on  a  campaign  —  that  is  to  say,  at  the  sound  of  a  trum¬ 
pet  (Varro,  V.  91)  ;  two  standards  floated  from  the  citadel,  one 
red,  to  call  the  infantry,  the  other  dark-green  for  the  cavalry  : 
third,  that  these  comitia  were  always  held  in  the  Campus 
Martius,  because  the  army  could  not  assemble  within  the  city 
(Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27)  :  fourth,  that  every  voter  went  with  his 
arms  (Dion  Cassius,  XXXVII.)  :  fifth,  that  the  voters  were  dis¬ 
tributed  by  centuries,  the  infantry  on  one  side,  and  the  cavalry 
on  the  other  :  sixth,  that  every  century  had  at  its  head  its  cen¬ 
turion  and  its  ensign,  motisq  h  no?.t^(o  (Dionysius,  VII.  59)  :  sev¬ 
enth,  that  men  more  than  sixty  years  of  age,  not  being  a  part  of 
the  army,  had  not  the  right  to  vote  in  these  comitia  (Macrobius, 
I.  5;  Festus,  v.  Depontani).  Then,  in  the  ancient  language,  the 
word  classis  signified  a  military  body,  and  the  word  centuria  de¬ 
signated  a  military  company.  The  proletarii  did  not  appear  in 
this  assembly  at  first;  still,  as  it  was  a  custom  in  the  army  to 
form  a  century  of  laborers,  they  might  form  a  century  in  the 
comitia. 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


385 


Tarquin.  The  defeat  of  royalty  was  the  defeat  cf  the 
plebs. 

The  patricians  attempted  to  take  away  from  them 
all  the  conquests  which  they  had  made  under  the  kings. 
One  of  the  first  acts  was  to  take  from  them  the  lands 
that  Servius  had  given  them  ;  and  we  must  remark,  the 
only  reason  given  for  despoiling  them  thus,  was  that 
they  were  plebeians.1  The  patricians,  therefore,  re¬ 
stored  the  old  principle,  which  required  that  hereditary 
religion  alone  should  establish  the  right  of  property, 
and  which  did  not  permit  a  man  without  religion  and 
without  ancestors  to  exercise  any  right  over  the  soil. 

The  laws  that  Servius  had  made  for  the  plebs  were 
also  withdrawn.  If  the  system  of  classes  and  the  comi- 
tia  centuriata  were  not  abolished  by  the  patricians,  it 
was  because  the  state  of  war  did  not  allow  them  to  dis¬ 
organize  the  army,  and  also  because  they  understood 
now  to  surround  the  comitia  with  formalities  such  that 
they  could  always  control  the  elections.  They  dared 
not  take  from  the  plebs  the  title  of  citizens,  and  allowed 
them  to  figure  in  the  census.  But  it  is  clear  that,  while 
allowing  the  plebs  to  form  a  part  of  the  city,  they 
shared  with  them  neither  political  rights  nor  religion, 
nor  the  laws.  In  name,  the  plebs  remained  in  the 
city  ;  in  fact,  they  were  excluded. 

Let  us  not  unreasonably  accuse  the  patricians,  or 
suppose  that  they  coldly  conceived  the  design  of  op¬ 
pressing  and  crushing  the  plebs.  The  patrician  who 
was  descended  from  a  sacred  family,  and  felt  himself 
the  heir  to  a  worship,  understood  no  other  social  system 
than  that  whose  rules  had  been  traced  by  the  ancient 
religion.  In  his  eyes  the  constituent  element  of  every 

*  Cassius  Hemina,  in  Nonius,  Book  II.  v.  Pleviias. 

25 


386 


THE  REVOLUTION S. 


BOOK  IV. 


society  was  the  gens,  with  its  worship,  its  hereditary 
chief,  and  its  clientship.  For  him  the  city  could  not  be 
anything  except  an  assembly  of  the  chiefs  of  the  gentes. 
It  did  not  enter  his  mind  that  there  could  be  any  other 
political  system  than  that  which  rested  upon  worship, 
or  other  magistrates  than  those  who  performed  the 
public  sacrifices,  or  other  laws  than  those  whose  sacred 
formulas  religion  had  dictated.  It  was  useless  to  say 
to  him  that  the  plebeians  also  had  within  a  short  time 
adopted  a  religion,  and  that  they  offered  sacrifices  to 
the  Lares  of  the  public  squares.  He  would  reply  that 
this  religion  had  not  the  essential  character  of  a  real 
religion,  that  it  was  not  hereditary,  that  the  fires  were 
not  ancient  fires,  and  that  these  Lares  were  not  real 
ancestors.  He  would  have  added,  that  the  plebeians 
in  adopting  a  worship,  had  done  what  they  had  no  right 
to  do,  and  to  obtain  one,  had  violated  all  principle; 
that  they  had  taken  only  the  external  forms  of  worship, 
and  had  neglected  the  essential  principle;  it  was  not 
hereditary;  that,  in  fine,  this  image  of  religion  was  ab¬ 
solutely  the  opposite  of  religion. 

Since  the  patrician  persisted  in  thinking  that  heredi¬ 
tary  religion  alone  should  govern  men,  it  followed  that 
he  saw  no  religion  possible  for  the  plebs.  He  could 
not  understand  how  the  social  power  could  be  regularly 
exercised  upon  this  class  of  men.  The  sacred  law  could 
not  be  applied  to  them;  justice  was  sacred  ground, 
which  was  forbidden  to  them.  So  long  as  there  had 
been  kings,  they  had  taken  upon  themselves  to  govern 
the  plebs,  and  they  had  done  this  according  to  certain 
rules,  which  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  ancient 
religion,  and  which  necessity  or  the  public  interest  had 
produced.  But  by  the  revolution,  which  had  abolished 
royalty,  religion  had  assumed  its  empire;  it  necessar  i‘y 


CHAP.  VII.  T11.Æ  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


38Ï 


followed  that  the  whole  plebeian  class  were  placed  be 
yond  the  reach  of  social  laws. 

The  patricians  then  established  a  government  con¬ 
formable  to  their  own  principles  ;  but  they  had  not 
dreamed  of  establishing  one  for  the  plebs.  The  patri¬ 
cians  had  not  the  courage  to  drive  the  plebeians  from 
Rome,  but  they  no  longer  found  the  means  of  organizing 
them  into  a  regular  society.  We  thus  see,  in  the  midst 
of  Rome,  thousands  of  families  for  which  there  ex¬ 
isted  no  fixed  laws,  no  social  order,  no  magistrates.  The 
city,  th a  populuSy  —  that  is  to  say,  the  patrician  society, 
with  the  client  that  had  remained  to  it, — arose  powerful, 
organized,  majestic.  About  it  lived  a  plebeian  multi¬ 
tude,  which  was  not  a  people,  and  did  not  form  a  body. 
The  consuls,  the  chiefs  of  the  patrician  city,  maintained 
order  in  this  confused  population  ;  the  plebeians  obeyed: 
feeble,  generally  poor,  they  bent  under  the  power  of 
the  patrician  body. 

The  problem  that  was  to  decide  the  future  of  Rome 
was  this  :  How  can  the  plebs  become  a  regular  society  ? 

Now,  the  patricians,  governed  by  the  rigorous  prin- 
ples  of  their  religion,  saw  only  one  means  of  resolvino- 
this  problem  ;  this  was  to  adopt  the  plebs,  as  clients, 
into  the  sacred  organization  of  the  gentes.  It  appears 
that  one  attempt  was  made  in  this  direction.  The 
question  of  debts,  which  agitated  Rome  at  this  period, 
can  only  be  explained,  if  we  see  in  it  the  more  o-rave 
question  of  clientship  and  slavery.  The  Roman  plebs. 
robbed  of  their  lands,  were  no  longer  able  to  support 
themselves.  The  patricians  calculated  that,  by  the 
sacrifice  of  a  little  money,  they  could  bring  this  poor 
class  into  their  hands.  The  plebeian  began  to  borrow. 
In  borrowing,  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  creditor — sold 
himself.  It  was  so  much  a  sale  that  it  was  a  transac- 


388 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


tion  per  œs  et  libram  —  that  is  to  say,  with  the  solemn 
formality  which  was  commonly  employed  to  confer 
upon  a  man  the  right  of  property  in  any  object.1  The 
plebeian,  it  is  true,  took  security  against  slavery.  By  a 
sort  of  fiduciary  contract,  he  stipulated  that  he  should 
retain  his  rank  of  freeman  until  the  day  of  the  pay¬ 
ment,  and  that  on  that  day  he  should  recover  full  pos¬ 
session  of  himself  on  paying  the  debt.  But  on  that 
day,  if  the  debt  was  not  paid,  he  lost  the  benefit  of  his 
contract.  He  was  in  the  power  of  his  creditor,  who 
took  him  to  his  house  and  made  him  his  client  and 
servant.  In  all  this  the  creditor  did  not  think  he  was 
committing  any  act  of  inhumanity  ;  the  ideal  of  society 
being,  in  his  eyes,  the  government  of  the  gens,  he  saw 
nothing  more  legitimate  or  more  commendable  than  to 
bring  men  into  it  by  any  means  possible.  If  this  plan 
had  succeeded,  the  plebs  would  have  disappeared  in 
little  time,  and  the  Roman  city  would  have  been  noth¬ 
ing  but  an  association  of  patrician  gentes,  sharing 
among  them  a  multitude  of  clients. 

But  this  clientship  was  a  chain  which  the  plebeian 
held  in  horror.  He  fought  against  the  patrician  who, 
armed  with  his  debt,  wished  to  make  a  client  of  him. 
Clientship  was  for  him  equivalent  to  slavery  ;  the  pa¬ 
trician’s  house  was,  in  his  eyes,  a  prison  ( ergastulum ). 
Many  a  time  the  plebeian,  seized  by  the  patrician,  called 
upon  his  associates,  and  stirred  up  the  plebeians,  cry¬ 
ing  that  he  was  a  free  man,  and  displaying  the  wounds 
which  he  had  received  in  the  defence  of  Rome.  The 
calculation  of  the  patricians  only  served  to  irritate  the 
plebs.  They  saw  the  danger,  and  strove  with  all  their 

1  Varro,  L.  L .,  VII.  105.  Livy,  VIII.  28.  Aulus  Gellius, 
XX.  1.  Festus,  v.  Nexum. 


\ 


(•HAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


389 


energy  to  tree  themselves  from  this  precarious  state,  in 
which  the  fall  of  the  royal  government  had  placed 
them.  They  wished  to  have  laws  and  rights. 

But  it  does  not  appear  that  these  men  aspired  at 
first  to  share  the  laws  and  rights  of  the  patricians. 
Perhaps  they  thought,  with  the  patricians  themselves, 
that  there  could  be  nothing  in  common  between  the 
two  orders.  No  one  thought  of  civil  and  political 
equality.  That  the  plebeians  could  raise  themselves 
to  the  level  of  the  patricians,  never  entered  the  minds 
of  the  plebeian  of  the  first  centuries  any  more  than  it 
occurred  to  the  patrician. 

Far,  therefore,  from  claiming  equality  of  rights  and 
laws,  these  men  seem  to  have  preferred,  at  first,  com¬ 
plete  separation.  In  Rome  they  found  no  remedy  for 
their  sufferings  ;  they  saw  but  one  means  of  escaping 
from  their  inferiority  —  this  was  to  depart  from  Rome. 

The  historian  has  well  expressed  their  thoughts  when 
he  attributes  this  language  to  them  :  “  Since  the  patri¬ 
cians  wish  to  possess  the  city  alone,  let  them  enjoy  it 
at  their  ease.  For  us  Rome  is  nothing.  We  have 
neither  hearths,  nor  sacrifices,  nor  country.  We  only 
leave  a  foreign  city  ;  no  hereditary  religion  attaches 
us  to  this  place.  Every  land  is  good  for  us  ;  where 
we  find  liberty,  there  shall  be  our  country.”  1  And 
they  went  to  take  up  their  abode  on  the  Sacred  Mount, 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  ager  Romanus. 

In  view  of  such  an  act  the  senate  wras  divided  in 
opinion.  The  more  ardent  of  the  patricians  showed 
clearly  that  the  departure  of  the  plebs  was  far  from 
afflicting  them.  Thenceforth  the  patricians  alone 
would  remain  at  Rome  with  the  clients  that  wrere  still 


*  Dionysius,  VI.  45,  7t. 


890 


THE  REVOLUTION  S. 


BOOK  IV. 


faithful  to  them.  Rome  would  renounce  its  future 
grandeur,  but  the  patricians  would  be  masters  there. 
They  would  no  longer  have  these  plebeians  to  trouble 
them,  to  whom  the  rules  of  ordinary  government  could 
not  be  applied,  and  who  were  an  embarrassment  to  the 
city.  They  ought,  perhaps,  to  have  been  driven  out 
at  the  same  time  with  the  kings  ;  but  since  they  had 
of  themselves  taken  the  resolution  to  depart,  the  pa¬ 
tricians  ought  to  let  them  go,  and  rejoice  at  their  de¬ 
parture. 

But  others,  less  faithful  to  old  principles,  or  solici¬ 
tous  for  the  grandeur  of  Rome,  were  afflicted  at  the 
departure  of  the  plebs.  Rome  would  lose  half  its  sol¬ 
diers.  What  would  become  of  it  in  the  midst  of  the 
Latins,  Sabines,  and  Etruscans  —  all  enemies?  The 
plebs  had  good  qualities;  why  could  not  these  be  made 
use  of  for  the  interests  of  the  city?  These  senators 
desired,  therefore,  at  a  cost  of  a  few  concessions,  of 
which  they  did  not  perhaps  see  all  the  consequences, 
to  bring  back  to  the  city  those  thousands  of  arms  that 
made  the  strength  of  the  legions. 

On  the  other  side,  the  plebs  perceived,  at  the  end  of 
a  few  months,  that  they  could  not  live  upon  the  Sacred 
Mount.  They  procured,  indeed,  what  was  materially 
necessary  for  existence,  but  all  that  went  to  make  up 
an  organized  society  was  wanting.  They  could  not 
found  a  city  there,  because  they  could  not  find  a  priest 
who  knew  how  to  perform  the  religious  ceremony  of 
the  foundation.  They  could  not  elect  magistrates,  for 
they  had  no  prytaneum  with  its  perpetual  fire,  where 
the  magistrate  might  sacrifice.  They  could  find  no 
foundation  for  social  laws,  since  the  only  laws  of  which 
men  then  had  any  idea  were  derived  from  the  patrician, 
religion.  In  a  word,  they  had  not  among  them  the  ele- 


CHAP.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY.  891 

ments  of  a  city.  The  plebs  saw  clearly  that  by  being 
more  independent  they  were  not  happier;  that  they  did 
not  form  a  more  regular  society  than  at  Rome  ;  and 
that  the  problem,  whose  solution  was  so  important  to 
them,  was  not  solved.  They  had  gained  nothing  by 
leaving  Rome  ;  it  was  not  in  the  isolation  of  the  Sacred 
Mount  that  they  could  find  the  laws  and  the  rights  to 
which  they  aspired. 

It  was  found,  therefore,  that  the  plebs  and  patricians, 
though  they  had  almost  nothing  in  common,  could 
not  live  without  each  other.  They  came  together 
and  concluded  a  treaty  of  alliance.  This  treaty  ap¬ 
pears  to  have  been  made  on  the  same  terms  as  those 
which  terminate  a  war  between  two  different  peoples. 
Plebeians  and  patricians  were  indeed  neither  the  same 
people  nor  the  same  city.  By  this  treaty  the  patrician 
did  not  agree  that  the  plebeian  should  make  a  part  of 
the  religious  and  political  city  ;  it  does  not  appear  that 
the  plebs  demanded  it.  They  agreed  merely  that  in 
the  future  the  plebs,  having  been  organized  into  some¬ 
thing  like  a  regular  society,  should  have  chiefs  taken 
from  their  own  number.  This  is  the  origin  of  the 
tribuneship  of  the  plebs  —  an  entirely  new  institution, 
which  resembled  nothing  that  the  city  had  known 
before. 

The  power  of  the  tribunes  was  not  of  the  same  na¬ 
ture  as  the  authority  of  the  magistrates  ;  it  was  not 
derived  from  the  city  worship.  The  tribune  performed 
no  religious  ceremony.  He  was  elected  without  the 
auspices,  and  the  consent  of  the  gods  was  not  neces¬ 
sary  to  create  him.1  He  had  neither  curule  chair,  nor 
purple  robe,  nor  crown  of  leaves,  nor  any  cf  those 


1  Dionysius,  X.  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  8 4. 


392 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  TV. 


insignia  which,  in  all  the  ancient  cities,  designated  ma¬ 
gistrates  and  priests,  for  the  veneration  of  men.  He 
was  never  counted  among  the  Roman  magistrates. 
What,  then,  was  the  nature,  and  what  was  the  princi¬ 
ple,  of  his  power?  Here  we  must  banish  from  our 
minds  all  modern  ideas  and  habits,  and  transport  our¬ 
selves  as  much  as  possible  into  the  midst  of  the  ideas 
of  the  ancients.  Up  to  that  time  men  had  understood 
political  authority  only  as  an  appendage  to  the  priest¬ 
hood.  d  bus,  when  they  wished  to  establish  a  power 
that  was  not  connected  with  worship,  and  chiefs  who 
were  not  priests,  they  were  forced  to  resort  to  a  singu¬ 
lar  device.  For  this,  the  day  on  which  they  created 
the  first  tribune,  they  performed  a  religious  ceremony 
of  a  peculiar  character.1  Historians  do  not  describe 
the  rites;  they  merely  say  that  the  effect  was  to  render 
these  first  tribunes  sacrosancti.  Now,  these  words 
signified  that  the  body  of  the  tribune  should  be  reck¬ 
oned  thenceforth  among  the  objects  which  religion 
forbade  to  be  touched,  and  whose  simple  touch  made 
a  man  unclean.2  Thus  it  happened,  if  some  devout 
Roman,  some  patrician,  met  a  tribune  in  the  public 
street,  he  made  it  a  duty  to  purify  himself  on  return¬ 
ing  home,  “  as  if  his  body  had  been  defiled  simply  by 
the  meeting.” 3  This  sacrosanct  character  remained 
attached  to  the  tribune  during  the  whole  term  of  his 
office  ;  then  in  creating  his  successor,  he  transmitted 

1  Livy,  III.  55. 

2  This  is  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  sacer.  Plautus  Bacch., 
IV-  6,  13.  Catullus,  XIV.  12.  Festus,  v.  Sacer.  Macrobius,  III. 

7.  According  to  Livy,  the  epithet  sacrosanctus  was  not  at 
first  applied  to  the  tribune,  but  to  the  man  who  injured  the  per¬ 
son  of  the  tribune. 

3  Plutarch,  Rom.  Quest.,  81. 


CHAI'.  VII.  THE  PLEBS  ENTEE  THE  CITY.  393 

the  same  character  to  him,  just  as  the  consul,  in  creat¬ 
ing  other  consuls,  passed  to  them  the  auspices,  and  the 
power  to  perform  the  sacred  rites.  Later,  the  tribune- 
ship  having  been  interrupted  during  two  years,  it  was 
necessary,  in  order  to  establish  the  new  tribunes,  to 
renew  the  religious  ceremony  which  had  been  per¬ 
formed  on  the  Sacred  Mount. 

We  do  not  sufficiently  understand  the  ideas  of  the 
ancients,  to  say  whether  this  sacrosanct  character 
rendered  the  person  of  the  tribune  honorable  in  the 
eyes  of  the  patricians,  or  marked  him,  on  the  contrary, 
as  an  object  of  malediction  and  horror.  The  second 
conjecture  is  more  in  accordance  with  probability. 
What  is  certain  is,  that  in  every  way  the  tribune  was 
inviolable  ;  the  hand  of  a  patrician  could  not  touch 
him  without  grave  impiety. 

A  law  conferred  and  guaranteed  this  inviolability; 
it  declared  that  “no  person  should  use  violence  to¬ 
wards  a  tribune,  or  strike  him,  or  kill  him.”  It  added 
that  “  whoever  committed  one  of  these  acts  against  a 
tribune  should  be  impure,  that  his  property  should  be 
confiscated  to  the  profit  of  the  temple  of  Ceres,  and  that 
one  might  kill  him  with  impunity.”  The  law  conclud¬ 
ed  in  these  words,  whose  vagueness  powerfully  aided 
the  future  progress  of  the  tribuneship:  “No  magis¬ 
trate,  or  private  person,  shall  have  the  right  to  do  any¬ 
thing  against  a  tribune.”  All  the  citizens  took  an  oath 
by  which  they  agreed  always  to  observe  this  strange 
law,  calling  down  upon  their  heads  the  wrath  of  the 
gods  if  they  violated  it,  and  added  that  whoever  ren¬ 
dered  himself  guilty  of  an  attempt  against  a  tribune 
“should  be  tainted  with  the  deepest  impurity.”  1 


1  Dionysius,  VI.  89;  X.  32,  42. 


394 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


This  privilege  of  inviolability  extended  as  far  as  the 
body  of  the  tribune  could  extend  its  direct  action.  If 
a  plebeian  was  maltreated  by  a  consul  who  condemned 
him  to  imprisonment,  or  by  a  creditor  who  laid  hands 
on  him,  the  tribune  appeared,  placed  himself  between 
them  (inter  cessio),  and  stayed  the  patrician  hand. 
Who  would  have  dared  “  to  do  anything  against  a 
tribune,”  or  expose  himself  to  be  touched  by  him. 

But  the  tribune  exercised  this  singular  power  only 
where  he  was  present.  Out  of  his  presence  plebeians 
might  be  maltreated.  He  had  no  power  over  what 
took  place  beyond  the  reach  of  his  hands,  of  his  sight? 
of  his  word.1 

The  patricians  had  not  given  the  plebeians  rights  ; 
they  had  only  agreed  that  certain  ones  among  them 
should  be  inviolable.  Still  this  was  enough  to  afford 
some  security  to  all.  The  tribune  was  a  sort  of  living 
altar,  to  which  the  right  of  refuge  was  attached. 

The  tribunes  naturally  became  the  chiefs  of  the  plebs, 
and  assumed  the  power  of  deciding  causes  for  them. 
They  had  not,  it  is  true,  the  right  of  citing  before  them 
even  a  plebeian,  but  they  could  seize  upon  a  person.2 
Once  in  their  hands,  the  man  obeyed.  It  was  suffi¬ 
cient  even  to  be  found  within  the  circle  where  their 
voice  could  be  heard  ;  this  word  was  irresistible,  and  a 
man  had  to  submit,  even  if  he  were  a  patrician  or  a 
consul. 

The  tribune  had  no  political  authority.  Not  being 
a  magistrate,  he  could  not  convoke  the  curies  or  the 

1  Tribuni  antiquitus  créatif  non  juri  dicundo  nec  causis  que- 
relisque  de  absentibus  noscendis ,  sed  intercessionibus  faciendis 
quibus  pressentes  fuissent ,  ut  injuria  quœ  coram  Jieret  ai  cere 
tur.  Aulus  Gellius,  XIII.  12. 

*  Aulus  Gellius,  XV.  27.  Dionysius,  VIII.  87  ;  VI.  90. 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  FLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


395 


centuries.  He  could  make  no  proposition  in  the  sen 
ate  ;  it  was  not  supposed,  in  the  beginning,  that  he 
could  appear  there.  He  had  nothing  in  common  with 
the  real  city — that  is  to  say,  with  the  patrician  city, 
where  men  did  not  recognize  any  authority  of  his.  He 
was  not  the  tribune  of  the  people;  he  was  the  tribune 
of  the  plebs. 

There  were  then,  as  previously,  two  societies  in 
Rome  —  the  city  and  the  plebs  ;  the  one  strongly  organ¬ 
ized,  having  laws,  magistrates,  and  a  senate;  the  other 
a  multitude,  which  remained  without  rights  and  laws, 
but  which  found  in  its  inviolable  tribunes  protectors 
and  judges. 

In  succeeding  years  we  can  see  how  the  tribunes 
took  courage,  and  what  unexpected  powers  they  as¬ 
sumed.  They  had  no  authority  to  convoke  the  peo¬ 
ple,  but  they  convoked  them.  Nothing  called  them  to 
the  senate  ;  they  sat  at  first  at  the  door  of  the  cham¬ 
ber  ;  later  they  sat  within.  They  had  no  power  to 
judge  the  patricians;  they  judged  them  and  con¬ 
demned  them.  This  was  the  result  of  the  inviolability 
attached  to  them  as  sacrosancti.  Every  other  power 
gave  way  before  them.  The  patricians  were  disarmed 
the  day  they  had  pronounced,  with  solemn  rites,  that 
whoever  touched  a  tribune  should  be  impure.  The 
law  said,  “Nothing  shall  be  done  against  a  tribune.” 
If,  then,  this  tribune  convoked  the  plebs,  the  plebs 
assembled,  and  no  one  could  dissolve  this  assembly, 
which  the  presence  of  the  tribune  placed  beyond  the 
power  of  the  patricians  and  the  laws.  If  the  tribune 
entered  the  senate,  no  one  could  compel  him  to  retire. 
If  he  seized  a  consul,  no  one  could  take  the  consul 
from  his  hand.  Nothing  could  resist  the  boldness  of 
a  tribune.  Against  a  tribune  no  one  had  any  power, 
except  another  tribune. 


396 


THE  EE  VOLUTIONS. 


HOOK  IV. 


As  soon  as  the  plebs  thus  had  their  chiefs,  they  did 
not  wait  long  before  they  had  deliberative  assemblies. 
These  did  not  in  any  manner  resemble  those  of  the 
patricians.  The  plebs,  in  their  comitia,  were  distrib¬ 
uted  into  tribes;  the  domicile,  not  religion  or  wealth, 
regulated  the  place  of  each  one.  The  assembly  did 
not  commence  with  a  sacrifice;  religion  did  not  appear 
there.  They  knew  nothing  of  presages,  and  the  voice 
of  an  augur,  or  a  pontiff,  could  not  compel  men  to  sep¬ 
arate.  It  was  really  the  comitia  of  the  plebs,  and  they 
had  nothing  of  the  old  rules,  or  of  the  religion  of  the 
patricians. 

True,  these  assemblies  did  not  at  first  occupy  them¬ 
selves  with  the  general  interests  of  the  city;  they 
named  no  magistrates,  and  passed  no  laws.  They  de¬ 
liberated  only  on  the  interests  of  their  own  order, 
named  the  plebeian  chiefs,  and  carried  plébiscita. 
There  was  at  Rome,  for  a  long  time,  a  double  series 
of  decrees  —  senatusconsulta  for  the  patricians,  plé¬ 
biscita  for  the  plebs.  The  plebs  did  not  obey  the  sen¬ 
atusconsulta,  nor  the  patricians  the  plébiscita.  There 
were  two  peoples  at  Rome. 

These  two  peoples,  always  in  presence  of  each  other, 
and  living  within  the  same  walls,  still  had  almost  noth¬ 
ing  in  common.  A  plebeian  could  not  be  consul  of  the 
city,  nor  a  patrician  tribune  of  the  plebs.  The  ple¬ 
beian  did  not  enter  the  assembly  by  curies,  nor  the 
patrician  the  assembly  of  the  tribes.1 

They  were  two  peoples  that  did  not  even  understand 

1  Livy,  II.  GO.  Dionysius,  VII.  16.  Festus,  y.  Scita  plebis. 
We  speak  only  of  the  earliest  times.  The  patricians  were  en¬ 
rolled  in  the  tribes,  but  certainly  took  no  part  in  assemblies  which 
met  without  auspices  and  without  a  religious  ceremony,  and  in 
which  for  a  long  time  they  recognized  no  legal  authority. 


CHAP.  VII. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


391 


each  other,  not  having  —  so  to  speak — common  ideas. 
If  the  patrician  spoke  in  the  name  of  religion  and  the 
laws,  the  plebeian  replied  that  he  did  not  know  this 
hereditary  religion,  or  the  laws  that  flowed  from  it. 
If  ihe  patrician  alleged  a  sacred  custom,  the  plebeian 
replied  in  the  name  of  the  law  of  nature.  They  re¬ 
proached  each  other  with  injustice  ;  each  was  just  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  own  principles,  and  unjust  according  to 
the  principles  and  beliefs  of  the  other.  The  assembly 
of  the  curies  and  the  reunion  of  the  patres  seemed  to 
the  plebeian  odious  privileges.  In  the  assembly  of  the 
tribes  the  patrician  saw  a  meeting  condemned  by  re¬ 
ligion.  The  consulship  was  for  the  plebs  an  arbitrary 
and  tyrannical  authority;  the  tribuneship,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  patrician,  was  something  impious,  abnormal,  con¬ 
trary  to  all  principles;  he  could  not  understand  this 
sort  of  chief,  who  was  not  a  priest,  and  who  was  elected 
without  auspices.  The  tribuneship  deranged  the  sa¬ 
cred  order  of  the  city  ;  it  was  what  a  heresy  is  in  re¬ 
ligion —  the  public  worship  was  destroyed.  “The 
gods  will  be  against  us,”  said  a  patrician,  “so  long  as  we 
have  among  us  this  ulcer,  which  is  eating  us  up,  and 
which  extends  its  corruption  to  the  whole  social  body.” 
The  history  of  Rome,  during  a  century,  was  fllled  with 
similar  discords  between  these  two  peoples,  who  did 
not  seem  to  speak  the  same  language.  The  patricians 
persisted  in  keeping  the  plebs  without  the  body  poli¬ 
tic,  and  the  plebs  established  institutions  of  their  own. 
The  duality  of  the  Roman  population  became  from  day 
to  day  more  manifest. 

And  yet  there  was  something  which  formed  a  tie 
between  these  two  peoples  :  this  was  war.  The  patri¬ 
cians  were  careful  not  to  deprive  themselves  of  sol 
diers.  They  had  left  to  the  plebeians  the  title  of  citi 


898 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


zens,  if  only  to  incorporate  them  into  the  legions. 
They  had  taken  care,  too,  that  the  inviolability  of  the 
tribunes  should  not  extend  outside  of  Rome,  and  for 
this  purpose  had  decided  that  a  tribune  should  never 
go  out  of  the  city.  In  the  army,  therefore,  the  plebs 
were  under  control  ;  there  was  no  longer  a  double 
power  ;  in  presence  of  the  enemy  Rome  became  one. 

Then,  thanks  to  the  custom,  begun  after  the  expul. 
sion  of  the  kings,  of  assembling  the  army  to  consult  on 
public  interests  and  on  the  choice  of  magistrates,  there 
were  mixed  assemblies,  where  the  plebeians  appeared 
by  the  side  of  the  patricians.  Now  we  see  clearly  in 
history  that  the  comitia  by  centuries  became  more 
and  more  important,  and  became  insensibly  what  were 
called  the  great  comitia.  Indeed,  in  the  conflict  which 
sprang  up  between  the  assembly  by  curies  and  the 
assembly  by  tribes,  it  seemed  natural  that  the  comitia 
centuriata  should  become  a  sort  of  neutral  ground, 
where  general  interest  would  be  debated. 

The  plebeian  was  not  always  poor.  Often  he  be¬ 
longed  to  a  family  which  was  originally  from  another 
city,  which  was  there  rich  and  influential,  and  whom 
the  fate  of  war  had  transported  to  Rome  without  taking 
away  his  wealth,  or  the  sentiment  of  dignity  that  ordi¬ 
narily  accompanies  it.  Sometimes,  too,  the  plebeian 
had  become  rich  by  his  labor,  especially  in  the  time  of 
the  kings.  When  Servius  had  divided  the  population 
into  classes  according  to  their  fortunes,  some  plebeians 
belonged  to  the  first  class.  The  patricians  had  not 
dared,  or  had  not  been  able,  to  abolish  this  division  into 
classes.  There  was  no  want  of  plebeians,  therefore,  who 
fought  by  the  side  of  the  patricians  in  the  foremost 
ranks  of  the  legion,  and  who  voted  with  them  in  the 
first  centuries. 


UHAP.  VII.  THE  plebs  enter  the  city. 


399 


This  class,  rich,  haughty,  and  prudent  as  well,  who 
could  not  have  been  pleased  with  disturbances,  and 
must  have  feared  them,  who  had  much  to  lose  if  Rome 
fell,  and  much  to  gain  if  it  prospered,  was  a  natural 
mediator  between  the  two  hostile  orders. 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  plebs  felt  any  repugnance 
at  seeing  distinctions  of  wealth  established  among 
them.  Thirty-six  years  after  the  establishment  of  tbe 
tribuneship,  the  number  of  tribunes  was  increased  to 
ten,  that  there  might  be  two  for  each  of  the  five  classes. 
The  plebs,  then,  accepted  and  clung  to  the  division 
which  Servius  had  established.  And  even  the  poorer 
poition,  which  was  not  comprised  in  the  classes,  made 
no  complaint  ;  it  left  the  privileges  to  the  wealthier, 
and  did  not  demand  its  share  of  the  tribunes. 

As  to  the  patricians,  they  had  little  fear  of  the  im¬ 
portance  which  wealth  assumed,  for  they  also  were 
rich.  Wiser  or  more  fortunate  than  the  Eupatrids  of 
Athens,  who  were  annihilated  on  the  day  that  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  affairs  fell  to  the  rich,  the  patricians  never  neg¬ 
lected  agriculture,  or  commerce,  or  even  manufactures. 
To  inciease  their  fortunes  was  always  their  great  care. 
Labor,  frugality,  and  good  speculations  were  always 
their  virtues.  Besides,  every  victory  over  an  enemy, 
every  conquest,  increased  their  possessions;  and  so 
they  saw  no  great  evil  in  uniting  power  and  wealth. 
The  habits  and  character  of  the  nobles  were  such 
that  they  could  not  feel  contempt  for  a  rich  man  even 
though  he  was  a  plebeian.  The  rich  plebeian  ap¬ 
proached  them,  lived  with  them,  and  many  relations 
of  interest  and  friendship  were  established.  This  per¬ 
petual  contact  brought  about  a  change  of  ideas.  The 
plebeian  made  the  patrician  understand,  little  by  little, 
the  wishes  and  the  rights  of  his  class.  The  patrician 


400 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


ended  by  being  convinced.  Insensibly  he  came  to  have 
a  less  firm  and  haughty  opinion  of  his  superiority; 
he  was  no  longer  so  sure  about  his  rights.  Now,  an 
aristocracy,  when  it  comes  to  doubt  that  its  empire  is 
legitimate,  either  no  longer  has  the  courage  to  defend 
it,  or  defends  it  badly.  As  soon  as  the  prerogatives 
of  the  patricians  were  no  longer  an  article  of  faith  for 
them,  this  order  might  be  said  to  be  halt  vanquished. 

The  rich  men  appear  to  have  exercised  an  influence 
of  another  kind  on  the  plebs,  from  whom  they  sprang, 
and  from  whom  they  did  not  yet  separate.  As  they 
desired  the  greatness  of  Rome,  they  wished  for  the 
union  of  the  two  orders.  Besides,  they  were  ambitious  ; 
they  calculated  that  the  absolute  separation  of  the  two 
orders  forever  limited  their  own  career,  by  chaining  them 
forever  to  the  inferior  class,  whilst  a  union  would  open 
a  way  to  them,  the  end  of  which  they  could  not  see. 
They  tried,  therefore,  to  give  the  ideas  and  wishes  of 
the  plebeians  another  direction.  Instead  of  persisting 
in  forming  a  separate  order,  instead  of  making  laws  for 
themselves  which  the  other  order  would  never  recog¬ 
nize,  instead  of  working  slowly  by  plébiscita  to  make  a 
species  of  laws  for  their  own  use,  and  to  prepare  a  code 
which  would  have  no  official  value,  they  inspired  the 
plebs  with  the  idea  of  penetrating  into  the  patrician 
city,  and  sharing  its  laws,  institutions,  and  dignities, 
From  that  time  the  desires  of  the  plebs  turned  to  a 
union  of  the  two  orders  on  the  condition  of  equality. 

The  plebs,  once  started  in  this  direction,  began  to 
demand  a  code.  There  were  laws  at  Rome,  as  in  all 
cities,  unchangeable  and  holy  laws,  which  were  written, 
and  the  text  of  which  was  preserved  by  priests.1  But 
these  laws,  which  were  a  part  of  the  religion,  applied 


1  Dionysius,  X.  1. 


CHAP.  vn.  THE  PLEB8  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


401 


only  to  the  members  of  the  religious  city.  The  plebe¬ 
ians  had  no  right  to  know  them  ;  and  we  may  believe 
that  they  had  no  right  to  claim  their  protection.  These 
laws  existed  for  the  curies,  for  the  gentes,  for  the  pa¬ 
tricians  and  their  clients,  but  not  for  others.  They  did 
not  recognize  the  right  to  hold  property  in  one  who 
had  no  sacra  ;  they  granted  justice  to  no  one  who  had 
not  a  patron.  It  was  the  exclusively  religious  character 
of  the  law  that  the  plebs  wished  to  abolish.  They  de¬ 
manded  not  only  that  the  laws  should  be  reduced  to 
writing  and  made  public,  but  that  there  should  be  laws 
that  should  be  equally  applicable  to  the  patricians  and 
themselves. 

The  tribunes  wished  at  first,  it  appears,  that  the  laws 
should  be  drawn  up  by  the  plebeians.  The  patrician* 
replied,  that  apparently  the  tribunes  were  ignorant  ol 
what  a  law  was,  for  otherwise  they  would  not  have 
made  such  a  claim.  “  It  is  a  complete  impossibility,” 
said  they,  “for  the  plebeians  to  make  laws.  You  who 
have  no  auspices,  you  who  do  not  perform  religious 
acts,  what  have  you  in  common  with  sacred  things, 
among  which  the  laws  must  be  counted?”1  This 
notion  of  the  plebeians  appeared  monstrous  to  the  pa¬ 
tricians;  and  the  old  annals,  which  Livy  and  Dionys¬ 
ius  of  Halicarnassus  consulted  in  this  part  of  their  his¬ 
tories,  mention  frightful  prodigies  —  the  heavens  on  fire, 
spectres  leaping  in  the  air,  and  showers  of  blood.2  The 
real  prodigy  was  that  the  plebeians  thought  of  making 
laws.  Between  the  two  orders,  each  of  which  was 
astonished  at  the  persistence  of  the  other,  the  republic 
remained  eight  years  in  suspense.  Then  the  tribunes 
made  a  compromise.  “  Since  you  are  unwilling  that  the 

1  Livy,  III.  31.  Dionysius,  X.  4.  *  Julius  Obsequens,  16. 

26 


402 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


laws  should  be  written  by  the  plebeians,”  they  said, 
“choose  the  legislators  in  the  two  orders.”  By  this 
they  thought  they  were  conceding  a  great  deal;  but 
it  was  little  according  to  the  rigorous  principles  of  the 
patrician  religion.  The  senate  replied  that  it  war  in 
no  way  averse  to  the  preparation  of  a  code,  but  that  this 
code  could  be  drawn  up  only  by  patricians.  Finally, 
they  found  a  means  of  conciliating  the  interests  of  the 
plebs  with  the  religious  requirements  on  which  the  pa¬ 
tricians  depended.  They  decided  that  the  legislators 
should  all  be  patricians,  but  that  their  code,  before  be¬ 
ing  promulgated  and  put  in  force,  should  be  exhibited 
to  the  eyes  of  the  public,  and  submitted  to  the  appro¬ 
bation  of  all  classes. 

This  is  not  the  moment  to  analyze  the  code  of  the 
decemvirs.  It  is  only  necessary  at  present  to  remark, 
that  the  work  of  the  legislators,  primarily  exposed  in 
the  forum,  and  freely  discussed  by  all  the  citizens,  was 
afterwards  accepted  by  the  comitia  centuriata — the 
assembly  in  which  the  two  orders  were  confounded. 
In  this  there  was  a  grave  innovation.  Adopted  by  all 
the  classes,  the  law  thenceforth  was  applied  to  all. 
We  do  not  find,  in  what  remains  to  us  of  the  code,  a 
single  word  that  implies  any  inequality  between  the 
plebeian  and  the  patrician,  either  in  the  rights  of  prop- 
ert.y,  or  in  contracts  and  obligations,  or  in  legal  pro¬ 
ceedings.  From  that  moment  the  plebeian  appeared 
before  the  same  tribunal  as  the  patrician,  proceeded  in 
the  same  manner,  and  was  judged  according  to  the 
same  law.  Now,  there  could  not  have  been  a  more  * 
radical  revolution  ;  the  daily  usages,  the  manners,  the 
sentiments  of  man  towards  man,  the  idea  of  personal 
dignity,  the  principles  of  law,  all  were  changed  in 
Home. 


CHaP.  VII.  THE  PLEB8  ENTER  THE  CITY. 


403 


As  there  remained  laws  to  make,  new  decemvirs 
were  appointed,  and  among  them  were  three  plebeians. 
Thus,  after  it  had  been  proclaimed  with  so  much  energy 
that  the  making  of  laws  belonged  to  the  patrician  class, 
so  rapid  was  the  progress  of  ideas  that  at  the  end  of  a 
year  plebeians  were  admitted  among  the  legislators. 

The  manners  tended  towards  equality.  Men  were 
upon  an  incline  where  they  could  no  longer  hold  back. 
It  had  become  necessary  to  make  a  law  forbidding 
marriage  between  the  two  orders — a  certain  proof  that 
îeligion  and  manners  no  longer  sufficed  to  prevent  this. 
But  hardly  had  they  had  time  to  make  the  law,  when 
it  fell  before  an  almost  universal  reprobation.  A  few 
patricians  persisted,  indeed,  in  calling  upon  their  re¬ 
ligion..  “Our  blood  will  be  attainted,  and  the  hereditary 
woiship  of  every  family  will  be  destroyed  by  it  ;  no  one 
will  any  longer  know  of  what  race  he  is  born,  to  what 
sacrifices  he  belongs;  it  will  be  the  overthrow  of  all 
institutions,  human  and  divine.”  The  plebeians  did  not 
heed  these  arguments,  which  appeared  to  them  mere 
quibbles  without  weight.  To  discuss  articles  of  faith 
before  men  who  had  no  religion  was  time  lost.  Be¬ 
sides,  the  tribunes  replied  very  justly,  “If  it  is  true  that 
your  religion  speaks  so  loud,  what  need  have  you  of 
this  law?  It  is  of  no  account;  withdraw  it,  you  re¬ 
main  as  free  as  before  not  to  ally  yourselves  \\  ith  ple¬ 
beian  families.”  The  law  was  withdrawn. 

At  once  marriages  became  frequent  between  the  two 
orders.  The  rich  plebeians  were  so  sought  after,  that, 
to  speak  only  of  the  Licinii,  they  allied  themselves 
with  three  of  the  patrician  gen  tes,  the  Fabii,  the  Cor- 
neui,  and  the  Manlii.1  It  could  then  be  seen  that  the 


1  Livy  V.  12;  VI.  34,  39 


404 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


law  had  been  for  a  moment  the  only  barrier  which 
separated  the  two  orders.  Thenceforth  the  patrician 
blood  and  plebeian  blood  were  mingled. 

As  soon  as  equality  was  conquered  in  private  life,  the 
great  difficulty  was  overcome,  and  it  seemed  natural  that 
equality  should  also  exist  in  politics.  The  plebs  then 
asked  why  the  consulship  was  closed  to  them,  and  they 
saw  no  reason  why  they  should  be  withheld  from  it. 

There  was,  however,  a  very  potent  reason.  The 
consulship  was  not  simply  a  command  ;  it  was  a  priest¬ 
hood.  To  be  a  consul  it  was  not  sufficient  to  offer 
guarantees  of  intelligence,  of  courage,  of  probity  ;  the 
consul  must  also  be  able  to  perform  the  ceremonies  of 
the  public  worship.  It  was  necessary  that  the  rites 
should  be  duly  observed,  and  that  the  gods  should  be 
satisfied.  Now,  the  patricians  alone  possessed  the  sa¬ 
cred  character  which  permitted  them  to  pronounce  the 
prayers,  and  to  call  down  the  divine  protection  upon 
the  city.  The  plebeian  possessed  nothing  in  common 
with  the  worship  ;  religion,  therefore,  forbade  him  to 
be  consul  —  nefas  plebeium  consulem  fieri. 

We  may  imagine  the  surprise  and  indignation  of  the 
patricians,  when  plebeians  claimed  for  the  first  time  the 
right  to  be  consuls.  Religion  itself  appeared  to  be 
menaced.  The  nobles  took  a  great  deal  of  pains  to 
make  the  plebs  understand  this;  they  told  them  how 
important  religion  was  to  the  city,  that  religion  had 
founded  the  city,  and  that  it  presided  over  all  public 
acts,  directed  the  deliberative  assemblies,  and  gave 
the  republic  its  magistrates.  They  added,  that  this 
religion  was,  according  to  ancient  customs  (more  ma - 
jorum),  the  patrimony  of  the  patricians,  that  its  rites 
could  be  known  and  practised  only  by  them,  and,  in 
fine,  that  the  gods  would  not  accept  the  sacrifice  of  a 


\ 


CHAP.  YH.  THE  PLEBS  ENTEE  THE  CITY. 


405 


plebeian.  To  propose  to  have  plebeian  consuls  was  to 
wish  to  suppress  the  religion  of  the  city.  Thenceforth 
the  worship  would  be  impure,  and  the  city  would,  no 
longer  be  at  peace  with  its  gods.1 

The  patricians  used  all  their  influence  and  all  their 
address  to  keep  the  plebeians  from  the  magistracies. 
They  were  defending  at  the  same  time  their  religion 
and  their  power.  As  soon  as  they  saw  that  the  con 
sulship  was  in  danger  of  falling  into  the  hands  of  plebe¬ 
ians,  they  separated  from  it  the  religious  function  which 
was  the  most  important  of  all,  —  that  which  consisted 
in  making  the  lustration  of  the  citizens,  —  and  thus  the 
censorship  was  established.  At  the  moment  when  it 
seemed  impossible  to  resist  the  claims  of  the  plebeians, 
the  consulship  was  replaced  by  the  military  tribune- 
ship.  But  the  plebs  showed  great  patience;  they  waited 
seventy-five  years  before  their  hopes  were  realized. 
It  is  clear  that  they  displayed  less  ardor  in  obtaining 
the  high  magistracies  than  they  had  shown  in  conquer¬ 
ing  the  tribuneship  and  a  code. 

But  if  the  plebs  were  somewhat  indifferent,  there 
was  a  plebeian  aristocracy  that  was  ambitious.  Here 
is  a  legend  of  this  period:  “Fabius  Ambustus,  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  patricians,  had  married 
his  two  daughters,  one  to  a  patrician,  who  became  a 
military  tribune,  the  other  to  Licinius  Stolo,  a  promi¬ 
nent  plebeian.  TLis  plebeian’s  wife  was  one  day  at  the 
house  of  her  sister,  when  the  lictors,  conducting  the 
military  tribune  to  his  house,  struck  the  door  with 
their  fasces.  As  she  was  ignorant  of  this  usage,  she 
showed  signs  of  fear.  The  laughter  and  the  ironical 
questions  of  her  sister  showed  her  how  much  a  plebe* 


1  Livy,  VI.  41. 


406 


THE  -REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


ian  marriage  had  degraded  lier  by  placing  her  in  a 
house  where  dignities  and  honors  could  never  enter. 
Her  father  guessed  her  cause  of  trouble,  and  consoled 
hei  by  piomising  that  she  should  see  at  her  own  house 
what  she  had  seen  at  her  sister’s.  He  planned  with 
his  son-in-law,  and  both  worked  with  the  same  object 
in  view.”  This  legend  teaches  us  two  things  —  one, 
that  the  plebeian  aristocracy,  by  living  with  the  patri¬ 
cians,  shared  their  ambitions,  and  aspired  to  their  dig¬ 
nities  ;  the  other,  that  there  were  patricians  who  encour¬ 
aged  and  excited  the  ambition  of  this  new  aristocracy, 
which  was  united  with  them  by  the  closest  ties. 


Iu  appeals  that  Licinius  and  Sextius,  who  was  joined 
with  him,  did  not  calculate  that  the  plebs  would  make 
gieat  efforts  to  gain  the  right  of  being  consuls;  for 
they  thought  it  necessary  to  propose  three  laws  at  the 
same  time.  rlhe  one,  the  object  of  which  was  to  make 
it  imperative  that  one  of  the  consuls  should  be  chosen 
from  the  plebs,  was  preceded  by  two  others,  one  of 
which  diminished  the  debts,  and  the  other  granted 
lands  to  the  people.  The  two  first,  it  is  evident,  were 
intended  to  warm  up  the  zeal  of  the  plebs  in  favor  of 
the  third.  For  a  moment  the  plebs  were  too  clear¬ 
sighted  ;  they  fell  in  with  the  laws  that  were  for  them, 
the  reduction  of  debts,  and  the  distribution  of  lands, 
and  gave  little  heed  to  the  consulship.  But  Lieini- 
us  îeplied  that  the  three  laws  were  inseparable,  and 
that  they  must  be  accepted  or  rejected  together.  The 
Roman  constitution  authorized  this  course.  Very  natu¬ 
rally  the  plebs  preferred  to  accept  all,  rather  than  to  lose 
all.  But  it  was  not  enough  that  the  plebs  wished  to 
make  these  laws.  It  was  also  necessary  at  that  time  that 
the  senate  should  convoke  the  great  comitia,  and  should 


CHAT.  VII. 


THE  PLEB8  ENTEE  THE  CITY. 


407 


afterwards  confirm  the  decree.1  It  refused  for  ten  years 
to  do  this.  Finally  an  event  took  place  which  Livy 
has  left  too  much  in  the  shade.2  It  appears  that  the 
plebs  took  arms,  and  that  civil  war  raged  in  the  streets 
of  i  orne.  The  patricians,  when  conquered,  approved 
and  confirmed  in  advance,  by  a  senatusconsultum,  all 
the  decrees  which  the  people  should  pass  during  that 
year.  Now,  nothing  prevented  the  tribunes  from  pass¬ 
ing  their  three  laws.  From  that  time  the  plebs  had 
every  year  one  of  the  two  consuls,  and  they  were  not 
long  in  succeeding  to  other  magistracies.  The  plebeian 
wore  the  purple  dress,  and  was  preceded  by  the  fasces; 
he  administered  justice;  he  was  a  senator;  he  gov¬ 
erned  the  city,  and  commanded  the  legions. 

The  priesthoods  remained,  and  it  did  not  seem  as  if 
these  could  be  wrested  from  the  patricians;  for,  in  the 
old  religion,  it  was  an  unchangeable  dogma  that  the 
right  of  reciting  the  prayers,  and  of  touching  sacred 
objects,  was  transmitted  with  the  blood.  The  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  rites,  like  the  possession  of  the  gods,  was 
hereditary.  In  the  same  manner  as  the  domestic  wor¬ 
ship  was  a  patrimony,  in  which  no  foreigner  could  take 
part,  the  worship  of  the  city,  also,  belonged  exclusively 
to  the  families  that  had  formed  the  primitive  city.  As¬ 
suredly,  in  the  first  centuries  of  Rome,  it  would  not 
have  entered  the  mind  of  any  one  that  a  plebeian 
could  be  a  pontiff;  but  ideas  had  changed.  The  ple¬ 
beians,  by  taking  from  religion  its  hereditary  character, 
had  made  a  religion  for  their  own  use.  They  had 
made  for  themselves  domestic  Lares,  altars  in  public 
squares,  and  a  hearth  for  the  tribes.  At  first  the  patri¬ 
cians  had  nothing  but  contempt  for  this  parody  upon 


1  Livy,  IV.  49. 


*  Livy,  IV.  42. 


408 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


their  religion.  But,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  it  became 
a  serious  thing,  and  the  plebeian  came  to  believe  that, 
even  as  to  worship  and  the  gods,  he  was  equal  to  the  pa¬ 
trician. 

Here  were  two  opposing  principles  in  action.  The 
patrician  persisted  in  declaring  that  the  sacerdotal 
character  and  the  right  of  adoring  the  divinity  were 
hereditary.  The  plebs  freed  religion  and  the  priest¬ 
hood  from  the  old  hereditary  character,  and  main¬ 
tained  that  every  man  was  qualified  to  pronounce 
prayers,  and  that,  provided  one  was  a  citizen,  he  had 
the  right  to  perform  the  ceremonies  of  the  city  wor¬ 
ship.  He  thus  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  a  plebe 
ian  might  be  a  priest. 

If  the  priestly  offices  had  been  distinct  from  the  mili 
tary  commands,  and  from  politics,  it  is  possible  that  the 
plebeians  would  not  have  coveted  them  so  ardently. 
But  all  these  things  were  confounded.  The  priest  was 
a  magistrate;  the  pontiff  was  a  judge;  the  augur  could 
dissolve  the  public  assemblies.  The  plebeians  did  not 
fail  to  perceive  that,  without  the  priesthoods,  they  had 
not  really  civil  or  political  equality.  They  therefore 
claimed  that  the  pontificate  should  be  shared  by  the 
two  orders,  as  the  consulship  had  been. 

It  became  difficult  to  allege  their  religious  incapacity 
as  an  objection,  since,  for  sixty  years,  plebeians  had 
been  seen,  as  consuls,  performing  the  sacrifices;  as 
censors,  making  the  lustrations;  as  conquerors  of  the 
enemy,  fulfilling  the  sacred  formalities  of  the  triumph. 
Through  the  magistracies  the  plebs  had  already  gained 
possession  of  a  part  of  the  priestly  offices  ;  it  was  not 
easy  to  save  the  rest.  Faith  in  the  hereditary  princi¬ 
ple  of  religion  had  been  destroyed  among  the  patricians 
themselves.  In  vain  a  few  among  them  invoked  the 


CHAP.  VU. 


THE  PLEBS  ENTEE  THE  CITY. 


409 


ancient  rules,  declaring,  “The  worship  will  oe  changed 
and  sullied  by  unworthy  hands;  you  are  stacking  the 
gods  themselves;  take  care  that  their  anger  is  not  felt 
against  our  city.”  It  does  not  seem  that  these  argu¬ 
ments  had  much  influence  with  the  plebs,  or  even  that 
the  majority  of  the  patricians  were  moved  by  them. 
The  new  mariners  gave  the  advantage  to  the  plebeian 
principle.  It  was  decided,  therefore,  that  half  of  the 
pontiffs  and  augurs  should,  from  that  time,  be  chosen 
among  the  plebs.* 

This  was  the  last  conquest  of  the  lower  orders;  they 
had  nothing  more  to  wish  for.  The  patricians  had  lost 
even  their  religious  superiority.  Nothing  distinguished 
them  now  from  the  plebs;  the  name  patrician  was  now 
only  a  souvenir.  The  old  principle  upon  which  the 
Roman  city,  like  all  ancient  cities,  had  been  founded, 
had  disappeared.  Of  this  ancient,  hereditary  religion, 
which  had  so  long  governed  men,  and  which  had  es¬ 
tablished  ranks  among  them,  there  now  remained  only 
the  exterior  forms.  The  plebeian  had  struggled  against 
it  for  four  centuries,  —  under  the  republic  and  under 
the  kings,  —  and  had  conquered. 

1  The  dignities  of  king  of  the  sacrifices,  of  flamens,  salii,  and 
vestals,  to  which  no  political  importance  was  attached,  were  left 
without  danger  in  the  hands  of  the  patricians,  who  always  re¬ 
mained  a  sacred  caste,  but  who  were  no  longer  a  dominant  caste. 


410 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IY. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Changes  in  Private  Law.  The  Code  of  the  Twelve  Ta¬ 
bles.  The  Code  of  Solon. 

It  is  not  in  the  nature  of  law  to  be  absolute  and  un¬ 
changeable;  it  is  modified  and  transformed,  like  every 
human  work.  Every  society  has  its  laws,  which  are 
formulated  and  developed  with  it,  which  change  with 
it,  and  which,  in  fine,  always  follow  the  movements  of 
its  institutions,  its  manners,  and  its  religious  beliefs. 

Men  of  the  early  ages  had  been  governed  by  a  re¬ 
ligion  which  influenced  their  minds  in  proportion  to  its 
rudeness.  This  religion  had  made  their  law,  and  had 
given  them  their  political  institutions.  But  finally  so¬ 
ciety  was  transformed.  The  patriarchal  rule  which 
this  hereditary  religion  had  produced  was  dissolved, 
with  the  lapse  of  time,  in  the  rule  of  the  city.  In¬ 
sensibly  the  gens  was  dismembered.  The  younger 
members  separated  from  the  older,  the  servant  from 
the  chief.  The  inferior  class  increased  ;  it  took  arms, 
and  finished  by  vanquishing  the  aristocracy,  and  con¬ 
quering  equal  rights.  This  change  in  the  social  state  ne¬ 
cessarily  brought  another  in  law  ;  for  as  strongly  as  the 
Eupatrids  and  patricians  were  attached  to  the  old  fam¬ 
ily  religion,  and  consequently  to  ancient  law,  just  so 
strongly  were  the  lower  classes  opposed  to  this  religion, 
which  had  long  caused  their  inferiority,  and  to  this  an¬ 
cient  law,  which  had  oppressed  them.  Not  only  did 
they  detest  it,  but  they  did  not  even  understand  it. 
As  they  had  not  the  belief  on  which  it  was  founded, 
this  law  appeared  to  them  to  be  without  foundation. 


chap.  yin. 


CHANGES  IN  PKI V ATE  LAW. 


411 


They  found  it  unjust,  and  from  that  time  it  became 
impossible  for  the  law  to  maintain  its  ground. 

If  we  place  ourselves  back  to  the  time  when  the 
plebs  had  increased  and  entered  the  body  politic,  and 
compare  the  law  of  this  epoch  with  primitive  law, 
grave  changes  appear  at  the  first  glance.  The  first 
and  most  salient  is,  that  the  law  has  been  rendered 
public,  and  is  known  to  all.  It  is  no  longer  that  sa¬ 
cred  and  mysterious  chant  which  men  repeated,  with 
pious  respect,  from  age  to  age;  which  priests  alone 
wrote,  and  which  men  of  the  religious  families  alone 
could  know.  The  law  has  left  the  rituals  and  the 
books  of  the  priests  ;  it  has  lost  its  religious  mystery  ; 
it  is  a  language  which  each  one  can  read  and  speak. 

Something  still  more  important  is  manifest  in  these 
codes.  The  nature  of  the  law  and  its  foundation  are 
no  longer  the  same  as  in  the  preceding  period.  For¬ 
merly  the  law  was  a  religious  decision;  it  passed  for  a 
revelation  made  by  the  gods  to  the  ancestors,  to  the 
divine  founder,  to  the  sacred  kings,  to  the  magistrate- 
priests.  In  the  new  code,  on  the  contrary,  the  legisla¬ 
tor  no  longer  speaks  in  the  name  of  the  gods.  The 
decemvirs  of  Rome  receive  their  powers  from  the  peo¬ 
ple.  The  people  also  invested  Solon  with  the  right  to 
make  laws.  The  legislator,  therefore,  no  longer  repre¬ 
sents  religious  tradition,  but  the  popular  will.  The 
principle  of  the  law,  henceforth,  is  the  interest  of  men, 
and  its  foundation,  the  consent  of  the  greatest  num¬ 
ber. 

Two  consequences  flow  from  this  fact.  The  first  is, 
that  the  law  is  no  longer  presented  as  an  immutable 
and  undisputable  formula.  As  it  becomes  a  human 
work,  it  is  ackowledged  to  be  subject  to  change.  The 
Twelve  Tables  say,  “  What  the  votes  of  the  people  have 


412 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


ordained  in  the  last  instance  is  the  law.”  1  Of  all  the 
passages  of  this  code  that  remain  to  us,  there  is  not 
one  more  important  than  this,  or  one  which  belter 
marks  the  character  of  the  revolution  that  had  then 
taken  place  in  the  law.  The  law  was  no  longer  a  sa¬ 
cred  tradition  —  mos  ;  it  was  simply  a  text — lex  ;  and 
as  the  will  of  men  had  made  it,  the  same  will  could 
change  it. 

The  other  consequence  is  this:  The  law,  which  be¬ 
fore  had  been  a  part  of  religion,  and  was  consequently 
the  patrimony  of  the  sacred  families,  was  now  the  com¬ 
mon  property  of  all  the  citizens.  The  plebeian  could 
plead  in  the  courts.  At  most,  the  Roman  patrician, 
more  tenacious  or  more  cunning  than  the  Eupatrid  of 
Athens,  attempted  to  conceal  the  legal  procedure  from 
the  multitude  ;  but  even  these  forms  were  not  long  in 
being  revealed. 

Thus  the  law  was  changed  in  its  nature.  From  that 
time  it  could  no  longer  contain  the  same  provisions 
as  in  the  preceding  period.  So  long  as  religion  had 
controlled  it,  it  had  regulated  the  relations  of  men  to 
each  other  according  to  the  principles  of  this  religion. 
But  the  inferior  class,  who  brought  other  principles 
into  the  city,  understood  nothing  either  of  the  old 
rules  of  the  right  of  property,  or  of  the  ancient  right  of 
succession,  or  of  the  absolute  authority  of  the  father,  or 
of  the  relationship  of  agnation,  and  wished  to  do  away 
with  all  that. 

This  transformation  of  the  law,  it  is  true,  could  not 
be  accomplished  at  once.  If  it  is  sometimes  possible 
for  man  quickly  to  change  his  political  institutions,  he 
cannot  change  his  legislation  and  his  private  law  ex- 


1  Livy,  VII.  17;  IX.  83,  84. 


CHAP.  VIII. 


CHANGES  IN  PRIVATE  LAW. 


413 


cept  slowly  and  by  degrees.  The  history  of  Roman 
law,  as  well  as  that  of  Athenian  law,  proves  this. 

The  Twelve  Tables,  as  we  have  seen  above,  were 
written  in  the  midst  of  social  changes  ;  patricians  made 
them,  but  they  were  made  upon  the  demand  ol  the 
plebs,  and  for  their  use.  This  legislation,  therefore,  is 
no  longer  the  primitive  law  of  Rome  ;  neither  is  it 
pretorian  law;  it  is  a  transition  between  the  two. 

Here,  tnen,  are  the  points  in  which  it  does  not  yet 
deviate  from  the  antique  law  :  it  maintains  the  power 
of  the  father;  it  allows  him  to  pass  judgment  upon  his 
son,  to  condemn  him  to  death,  or  to  sell  him.  While 
the  father  lives,  the  son  never  reaches  his  majority. 
As  to  the  law  of  succession,  this  also  follows  the  an¬ 
cient  rules  :  the  inheritance  passes  to  the  agnates,  and 
in  default  of  agnates,  to  the  gentiles.  As  to  the  cog¬ 
nates,  that  is  to  say,  those  related  through  females,  the 
law  does  not  yet  recognize  them.  They  do  not  inherit 
from  each  other  ;  the  mother  does  not  succeed  to  the 

son,  nor  the  son  to  the  mother.1 

Emancipation  and  adoption  preserve  the  character 
and  effects  which  these  acts  had  in  antique  law.  The 
emancipated  son  no  longer  takes  part  in  the  worship 
of  his  family,  and,  as  a  consequence,  he  loses  the  right 
of  succession. 

The  following  points  are  those  on  which  this  legisla¬ 
tion  deviates  from  primitive  law  :  — 

It  formally  admits  that  the  patrimony  may  be 
divided  among  the  brothers,  since  it  grants  the  actio 
familiœ  erciscundce .2 

It  declares  that  the  father  cannot  sell  his  son  more 

1  Gaius,  III.  17,  24.  Ulpian,  XVI.  4.  Cicero,  Be  Invent 
II.  50.  *  Gaius,  III.  19. 


414 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


than  three  times,  and  that  after  the  third  sale,  the  son 
shall  be  free.1  This  is  the  first  blow  struck  by  Roman 
law  at  the  paternal  authority. 

Another  change  still  more  important  was  that  which 
gave  a  man  the  right  to  transmit  his  property  by  will. 
Before  this  period  the  son  was  a  self-successor  and  a 
necessary  :  in  default  of  sons,  the  nearest  agnate  in¬ 
herited  ;  in  default  of  agnates,  the  property  returned 
to  the  gens,  a  trace  of  the  time  when  the  gens,  still 
undivided,  was  sole  proprietor  of  the  domain,  which 
afterwards  had  been  divided.  The  Twelve  Tables 
threw  aside  those  old  principles;  they  treated  property 
as  belonging,  not  to  the  gens,  but  to  the  individual  ; 
they  therefore  recognized  in  man  the  right  of  disposing 
of  his  property  by  will. 

Still  the  will  was  not  entirely  unknown  in  primitive 
law.  Even  then  a  man  might  choose  a  legatee  outside 
the  gens,  but  on  the  condition  that  his  choice  should 
be  ratified  by  the  assembly  of  the  curies;  so  that  noth¬ 
ing  less  than  the  entire  city  could  change  the  order 
which  religion  had  formerly  established.  The  new 
legislation  freed  the  will  from  this  vexatious  rule,  and 
gave  it  a  more  convenient  form  —  that  of  a  pretended 
sale.  The  man  feigned  to  sell  his  property  to  the  one 
whom  he  had  chosen  as  heir;  in  reality,  he  made  a 
will;  in  this  case  he  had  no  need  of  appearing  before 
the  assembly  of  the  people. 

This  form  of  will  had  the  great  advantage  of  being 
permitted  to  the  plebeians.  He  who  had  nothing  in 
common  with  the  curies,  had,  up  to  that  time,  found 
no  means  of  making  a  will.2  But  now  he  could  employ 

1  Digest ,  X.  tit.  2,  1. 

*  There  was,  indeed,  the  testament  in  procinctu ,  but  we  are 


CHAP.  VIII. 


CHANGES  IN  PRIVATE  LAW. 


415 


the  process  of  a  pretended  sale,  and  dispose  of  his  prop¬ 
erty.  The  most  remarkable  fact  in  this  period  of  the 
history  of  Roman  legislation  is,  that  by  the  introduc¬ 
tion  of  certain  new  forms,  the  law  extended  its  action 
and  its  benefits  to  the  inferior  orders.  Ancient  rules 
and  formalities  had  only  been  applicable  and  were  still 
applied  only  to  religious  families;  but  new  rules  uid 
new  methods  of  procedure  were  prepared  which  were 
applicable  to  the  plebeians. 

For  the  same  reason,  and  in  consequence  of  the  same 
needs,  innovations  were  introduced  into  that  part  of 
the  law  which  related  to  marriage.  It  is  clear  that  the 
plebeian  families  did  not  contract  the  sacred  marriage, 
and  that  for  them  the  conjugal  union  rested  only  upon 
the  mutual  agreement  of  the  parties  (mutvus  con¬ 
sensus) ,  and  on  the  affection  which,  they  had  promised 
each  other  ( ciffectio  maritalis).  No  formality,  religious 
or  civil,  took  place.  This  plebeian  marriage  finally 
prevailed  in  custom  and  in  law  ;  but  in  (he  beginning 
the  laws  of  the  patrician  city  did  not  recognize  it  as  at 
all  binding.  This  fact  had  important  consequences  ; 
as  the  marital  and  paternal  authority  in  the  eves  of  the 
patricians  flowed  only  from  the  religious  ceremony 
which  had  initiated  the  wife  into  the  worship  of  the 
husband,  it  followed  that  the  plebeian  had  not  this 
power.  The  law  recognized  no  family  as  his,  and  for 
him  private  law  did  not  exist.  This  was  a  situation 
that  could  not  last.  A  formality  was  therefore  devised 
for  the  use  of  the  plebeians,  which,  in  civil  affairs,  had 
the  same  effect  as  the  sacred  marriage.  They  had 
recourse,  as  in  case  of  the  will,  to  a  fictitious  sale. 

not  well  informed  as  to  this  sort  of  will;  perhaps  it  was  to  the 
testament  calatis  comitiis  what  the  assembly  by  centuries  was  to 
the  assembly  by  curies. 


416 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


The  wife  was  bought  by  the  husband  —  coemptio  /  from 
that  time  she  was  recognized  in  law  as  a  part  of  his 
property  — familia.  She  was  in  his  hands,  and  ranked 
as  his  daughter,  absolutely  as  if  the  religious  ceremony 
had  been  performed.1 

We  cannot  affirm  that  this  proceeding  was  not  older 
than  the  Twelve  Tables.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  the 
new  legislation  recognized  it  as  legitimate.  It  thus 
gave  the  plebeian  a  private  law,  which  was  analogous 
in  its  effects  to  the  law  of  the  patricians,  though  it 
differed  widely  in  principle.  Usus  corresponds  to 
coemptio  /  these  are  two  forms  of  the  same  act.  Every 
object  may  be  acquired  in  either  of  two  ways  —  by 
purchase  or  by  use  ;  the  same  is  the  case  with  the 
fictitious  property  in  the  wife.  Use  here  was  one 
year’s  cohabitation  ;  it  established  between  husband 
and  wife  the  same  legal  ties  as  purchase  or  the  reli¬ 
gious  ceremony.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that 
the  cohabitation  was  to  be  preceded  by  marriage,  at 
least  by  the  plebeian  marriage,  which  was  contracted 
by  the  consent  and  affection  of  the  parties.  Neither 
the  coemptio  nor  the  usus  created  a  moral  union  be¬ 
tween  husband  and  wife.  They  came  after  marriage  — 
merely  established  a  legal  right.  These  were  not,  as 
has  been  too  often  repeated,  modes  of  marriage;  they 
were  only  means  of  acquiring  the  marital  and  paternal 
power.2 

But  the  marital  authority  of  ancient  times  had  con¬ 
sequences,  which,  at  the  epoch  of  history  to  which  we 
have  arrived,  began  to  appear  excessive.  We  have 

1  Gaius,  I.  114. 

*  Gaius,  I.  Ill;  qua  anno  continuo  nupta  per  sever  abat.  So 
little  was  the  coemptio  a  mode  of  marriage  that  a  wife  might 
contract  it  with  another  besides  her  husband  —  with  a  guardian, 
for  example. 


OHAP.  VIII.  CHANGES  IN  PRIVATE  LAW. 


41# 


seen  that  the  wife  was  subjected  without  reserve  to  the 
husband,  and  that  the  power  of  the  latter  went  so  far 
that  he  could  alienate  or  sell  her.1  In  another  point  of 
view  the  power  of  the  husband  also  produced  effects 
which  the  good  sense  of  the  plebeian  could  hardly 
comprehend.  Thus  the  woman  placed  in  the  hands  of 
her  husband  was  separated  absolutely  from  her  pater¬ 
nal  family.  She  inherited  none  of  its  property,  and 
had  no  tie  of  relationship  wTith  it  in  the  eyes  of  the 
law.  This  was  very  well  in  primitive  law,  when  reli¬ 
gion  forbade  the  same  person  to  belong  to  two  gentes, 
or  to  sacrifice  at  two  hearths,  or  inherit  from  two 
houses.  But  the  power  of  the  husband  was  no  longer 
conceived  to  be  so  great,  and  there  were  several  excel¬ 
lent  motives  for  wishing  to  escape  these  hard  conse¬ 
quences.  The  code  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  while 
providing  that  a  year’s  cohabitation  should  put  the 
wife  in  the  husband’s  power,  was  compelled  to  leave 
him  the  liberty  of  contracting  a  union  less  binding. 
If  each  year  the  wife  interrupted  the  cohabitation  by 
an  absence  of  no  more  than  three  nights,  it  was  suffi¬ 
cient  to  prevent  the  husband’s  power  from  being  estab¬ 
lished.  Thus  the  wife  preserved  a  legal  connection 
with  her  own  family,  and  could  inherit  from  it. 

Without  entering  into  further  details,  we  see  that 
the  code  of  the  Twelve  Tables  already  departed  con¬ 
siderably  from  primitive  law.  Roman  legislation  was 
transformed  with  the  government  and  the  social  state, 

1  Gaius,  I.  117,  118.  That  this  mancipation  was  merel) 
fictitious  in  Gaius’s  time,  is  beyond  doubt;  but  it  was,  perhaps, 
real  in  the  beginning.  The  case  was  not  the  same,  moreover, 
with  the  marriage  by  simple  consensus  as  with  the  sacred  mar¬ 
riage,  which  established  between  husband  and  wife  an  indissolu¬ 
ble  bond. 


27 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


41 S 


Little  by  little,  and  in  almost  every  generation,  some 
new  change  took  place.  As  the  lower  classes  pro¬ 
gressed  in  political  order,  new  modifications  were 
introduced  into  the  rules  of  law.  First,  marriage  was 
permitted  between  patrician  and  plebeian.  Next,  it 
was  the  Papirian  law  which  forbade  the  debtor  to 
pledge  his  person  to  the  creditor.  The  procedure  be¬ 
came  simplified,  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the  plebe¬ 
ian,  by  the  abolition  of  the  actions  of  the  law.  Finally, 
the  pretor,  continuing  to  advance  in  the  road  which 
the  Twelve  Tables  had  opened,  traced  out,  by  the  side 
of  the  ancient  law,  an  entirely  new  system,  which  re¬ 
ligion  did  not  dictate,  and  which  approached  contin¬ 
ually  nearer  to  the  law  of  nature. 

An  analogous  revolution  appears  in  Athenian  law. 
We  know  that  two  codes  were  prepared  at  Athens, 
with  an  interval  of  thirty  years  between  them  ;  the 
first  by  Draco,  the  second  by  Solon. 

The  code  of  Draco  was  written  when  the  struggle 
of  the  two  classes  was  at  its  height,  and  before  the 
Eupatrids  were  vanquished.  Solon  prepared  his  at  the 
moment  when  the  inferior  class  gained  the  upper  hand. 
The  difference  between  these  codes,  therefore,  is 
great. 

Draco  was  a  Eupatrid  ;  he  had  all  the  sentiments  of 
his  caste,  and  was  w  learned  in  the  religious  law.”  He 
appears  to  have  done  no  more  than  to  reduce  the  old 
customs  to  writing  without  in  any  way  changing  them. 
His  first  law  is  this  :  “  Men  should  honor  the  gods  and 
heroes  of  the  country,  and  offer  them  annual  sacrifices, 
without  deviating  from  the  rites  followed  by  our  ances¬ 
tors.”  Memorials  of  his  laws  concerning  murder  have 
been  preserved.  They  prescribe  that  the  guilty  one 
shall  be  kept  out  of  the  temple,  and  forbid  him  to 


CHAP.  VIII.  CHANGES  IN  PRIVATE  LAW. 


419 


touch  the  lustral  water,  or  the  vessels  used  in  the 
ceremonies.1 

His  laws  appeared  cruel  to  succeeding  generations. 
They  were,  indeed,  dictated  by  an  implacable  reli¬ 
gion,  which  saw  in  every  fault  an  offence  against  the 
divinity,  and  in  every  offence  against  the  divinity  an 
unpardonable  crime.  Theft  was  punished  with  death, 
because  theft  was  an  attempt  against  the  religion  of 
property. 

A  curious  article  of  this  legislation  which  has  been 
preserved  shows  in  what  spirit  it  was  made.2  It  grants 
the  right  of  prosecution  for  a  murder  only  to  the  rela¬ 
tives  of  the  dead  and  the  members  of  his  gens.  We 
see  by  this  how  powerful  the  gens  still  was  at  that 
period,  since  it  did  not  permit  the  city  to  interfere  in 
its  affairs,  even  to  avenge  it.  A  man  still  belonged  to 
the  family  more  than  to  the  city. 

In  all  that  has  come  down  to  us  of  this  legislation 
we  see  that  it  does  no  more  than  reproduce  the  ancient 
law.  It  had  the  severity  and  inflexible  character  of 
the  old  unwritten  law.  We  can  easily  believe  that  it 
established  a  very  broad  distinction  between  the 
classes  ;  for  the  inferior  class  always  detested  it,  and  at 
the  end  of  thirty  years  demanded  a  new  code. 

I  he  code  of  Solon  is  entirely  different  j  we  can  see 
that  it  corresponded  to  a  great  social  revolution.  The 
first  peculiarity  that  we  remark  in  it  is,  that  the  laws 
are  the  same  for  all.  They  establish  no  distinction  be¬ 
tween  the  Eupatrids,  the  simple  free  men,  and  the 
Thetes.  These  names  are  not  even  found  in  any  of  the 
articles  that  have  been  preserved.  Solon  boasts  in  his 

1  Aulus  Gellius,  XI.  18.  Demosthenes,  in  Lept .,  158.  Por¬ 
phyry»  De  Abstinentia,  IX. 

*  Demosthenes,  in  Everg .,  71;  in  Macart 67. 


420 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


verses  of  having  written  the  same  laws  for  the  great 
and  the  small. 

Like  the  Twelve  Tables,  the  code  of  Solon  departed 
in  many  points  from  the  ancient  law;  on  othci  points 
he  remained  faithful  to  it.  This  is  not  to  say  that  the 
Roman  decemvirs  copied  the  laws  of  Athens,  but  the 
two  codes,  works  of  the  same  period  and  consequences 
of  the  same  social  revolution,  could  not  but  resemble 
each  other.  Still,  this  resemblance  is  little  more  than 
in  the  spirit  of  the  two  codes  ;  a  comparison  of  their 
articles  presents  numerous  differences.  There  are  points 
on  which  the  code  of  Solon  remains  nearer  to  primitive 
law  than  the  Twelve  Tables,  as  there  are  otheis  on 
which  he  departs  more  widely  from  it. 

The  very  early  laws  had  prescribed  that  the  eldest  son 
alone  should  inherit.  The  code  of  Solon  changed  this, 
and  prescribed  in  formal  terms  that  the  brothers  should 
share  the  patrimony.  But  the  legislator  did  not  depart 
from  primitive  law  enough  to  give  the  sister  a  part  in 
the  inheritance.  “The  division,”  he  says,  “shall  be 
among  the  so?is.v  1 

Further,  if  a  father  left  only  a  daughter,  this  daugh¬ 
ter  could  not  inherit  ;  the  property  fell  to  the  nearest 
agnate.  In  this  Solon  conformed  to  the  old  law  ;  but 
he  succeeded  in  giving  the  daughter  the  enjoyment  of 
the  patrimony  by  compelling  the  heir  to  marry  hei. 
Relationship  through  women  was  unknown  in  the 
primitive  law.  Solon  admitted  it  in  the  new  code,  but 
placed  it  below  the  relationship  through  males.  Here 
is  his  law:3  “If  a  father  leaves  only  a  daughter,  the 
nearest  agnate  inherits  by  marrying  the  daughter.  If 

1  Isæus,  VI.  25.  s  Isæus,  III.  42. 

*  Isæus,  VII.  19;  XI.  1, 11. 


s 


CHAP.  VIII. 


CHANGES  IN  PRIVATE  LAW. 


421 


he  leaves  ho  children,  his  brother  inherits,  and  not  his 
sister,  —  his  brother  by  the  same  father,  and  not  his 
uterine  brother.  In  default  of  brothers  and  the  sons 
of  brothers,  the  succession  falls  to  the  sister.  If  there 
are  neither  brothers,  nor  sisters,  nor  nephews,  the  cous¬ 
ins  and  the  children  of  cousins  inherit.  If  no  cousins 
are  found  in  the  paternal  branch  (that  is  to  say,  among 
the  agnates),  the  succession  is  conferred  on  the  collater¬ 
als  of  the  maternal  branch  (the  cognates).”  Thus 
women  began  to  enjoy  rights  of  inheritance,  but 
rights  inferior  to  those  of  men.  The  law  formally  de¬ 
clared  this  principle:  “Males  and  the  descendants 
through  males  exclude  women  and  the  descendants  of 
women.”  But  this  sort  of  relationship  was  recognized 
and  took  its  place  in  the  laws  —  a  certain  proof  that 
natural  right  began  to  speak  almost  as  loud  as  the  an¬ 
cient  religion. 

Solon  also  introduced  into  Athenian  legislation  some¬ 
thing  entirely  new  —  the  will.  Before  him  property 
passed  necessarily  to  the  nearest  agnate,  or,  in  default 
of  agnates,  to  the  gennetes  {gentiles')  ;  this  was  because 
goods  were  considered  as  belonging,  not  to  the  indi¬ 
vidual,  but  to  the  family.  But  in  Solon’s  time  men  be¬ 
gan  to  take  another  view  of  the  right  of  property.  The 
dissolution  of  the  old  yivog  had  made  every  domain  the 
property  of  an  individual.  The  legislator  therefore 
permitted  them  to  dispose  of  their  fortunes,  and  to 
choose  their  legatees.  Still,  while  suppressing  the 
rights  which  the  yépoç  had  over  each  of  its  members,  be 
did  not  suppress  the  rights  of  the  natural  family,  —  the 
son  remained  the  necessary  heir.  If  the  deceased  left 
only  a  daughter,  he  could  choose  his  heir  only  on  con- 
diticn  that  this  heir  should  many  the  daughter.  A 


122 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


man  without  children  was  free  to  will  his  property  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  fancy.1 

This  last  rule  was  absolutely  new  in  Athenian  legis¬ 
lation,  and  we  can  see  by  this  how  many  new  ideas 
concerning  the  family  sprang  up  at  that  time. 

The  primitive  religion  had  given  the  father  sovereign 
authority  in  his  own  house.  The  ancient  law  of  Athens 
went  so  far  as  to  permit  a  father  to  sell  his  son,  or  to 
put  him  to  death.2  Solon,  conforming  to  new  manners, 
limited  this  power.3  It  is  certainly  known  that  he  for¬ 
bade  a  father  to  sell  his  daughter,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  same  injunction  protected  the  son.  The  pa¬ 
ternal  authority  went  on  diminishing  as  the  ancient 
religion  lost  its  power,  —  an  event  which  happened 
earlier  at  Athens  than  at  Rome.  The  Athenian  law, 
therefore,  was  not  satisfied  to  say,  like  the  Twelve  Ta¬ 
bles,  “After  a  triple  sale,  the  son  shall  be  free.”  It 
permitted  the  son,  on  reaching  a  certain  age,  to  escape 
from  the  paternal  power.  Custom,  if  not  the  laws, 
insensibly  came  to  establish  the  majority  of  the  son 
during  the  lifetime  of  his  father.  There  was  an  Athe¬ 
nian  law  which  enjoined  the  son  to  support  his  father 
when  old  or  infirm.  Such  a  law  necessarily  indicates 
that  the  son  might  own  property,  and  consequently 
that  he  was  freed  from  parental  authority.  This  law 
did  not  exist  at  Rome,  because  the  son  never  possessed 
anything,  and  always  remained  a  minor. 

As  for  females,  the  law  of  Solon  still  conformed  to 
the  earlier  law,  when  it  forbade  her  to  make  a  will  be¬ 
cause  a  woman  was  never  a  real  proprietor,  and  could 
have  only  the  usufruct.  But  it  deviated  from  the  an- 

1  Isæus,  III.  41,  68,  73;  VI.  9  ;  X.  9,  13.  Plutarch,  Solon ,  21 

*  Plutarch,  Solon ,  13.  3  Plutarch,  Solony  23. 


CHAP.  IX.  NEW  PRINCIPLES  OF  GOVERNMENT.  423 


cient  code  when  it  permitted  women  to  claim  their 
dower.1 

There  were  still  other  innovations  in  this  code.  In 
opposition  to  Draco,  who  permitted  only  the  family  of 
the  victim  to  prosecute  one  for  a  crime,  Solon  granted 
this  light  to  every  citizen.2  Here  was  one  more  old  pa 
triarchal  right  abolished. 

Thus  at  Athens,  as  at  Rome,  law  began  to  undergo 
a  change.  For  the  new  social  state  a  new  code  sprang 
up.  Beliefs,  manners,  and  institutions  having  been 
modified,  laws  which  had  before  appeared  just  and  wise 
ceased  to  appear  so,  and  by  slow  degrees  were  abolished. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

New  Principles  of  Government.  The  Public  Interest  and 

the  Suffrage. 

The  revolution  which  overthrew  the  rule  of  the  sacer¬ 
dotal  class,  and  raised  the  lower  class  to  a  level  with 
the  ancient  chiefs  of  gentes,  marked  a  new  period  in 
the  history  of  cities.  A  sort  of  social  reconstruction 
was  accomplished.  It  was  not  simply  replacing  one 
class  of  men  in  power  by  another.  Old  principles  had 
been  thrust  aside,  and  new  rules  adopted  that  were  to 
govern  human  societies.  The  new  city,  it  is  true,  pie- 
served  the  exterior  forms  of  the  preceding  period.  The 
republican  system  remained;  almost  everywhere  the 

1  Isæus,  VII.  24,  25.  Dion  Chrysostomus,  Jlsçi  à moTiag. 
Harpocration,  IJfQa  pedin vov.  Demosthenes,  in  Eve r gum  ;  in 
Bœot  um  de  dote  ;  in  Necereim,  51,  52. 

*  Plutarch,  tSolon ,  IS. 


424 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


magistrates  preserved  their  ancient  names.  Athens 
still  had  its  archons,  and  Rome  its  consuls.  Nor  was 
anything  changed  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  public  re¬ 
ligion;  the  repasts  of  the  prytaneum,  the  sacrifices  at 
the  opening  of  the  public  assembly,  the  auspices  and 
the  prayers,  —  all  were  preserved.  It  is  quite  common 
with  man,  when  he  rejects  old  institutions,  to  wish  to 
preserve  their  exterior  forms. 

In  reality  all  was  changed.  Neither  institutions,  nor 
laws,  nor  beliefs,  nor  manners  were  in  this  new  period 
what  they  had  been  in  the  preceding.  The  old  system 
disappeared,  carrying  with  it  the  rigorous  rules  which 
it  had  established  in  all  thijigs;  a  new  order  of  things 
was  established,  and  human  life  changed  its  aspect. 

During  long  ages  religion  had  been  the  sole  princi¬ 
ple  of  government.  Another  principle  had  to  be  found 
capable  of  replacing  it,  and  which,  like  it,  might  gov¬ 
ern  human  institutions,  and  keep  them  as  much  as  pos¬ 
sible  clear  of  fluctuations  and  conflicts.  The  principle 
upon  which  the  governments  of  cities  were  founded 
thenceforth  was  public  interest. 

We  must  observe  this  new  dogma  which  then  made 
its  appearance  in  the  minds  of  men  and  in  history. 
Heretofore  the  superior  rule  whence  social  order  was 
derived  was  not  interest,  but  religion.  The  duty  of 
performing  the  rites  of  worship  had  been  the  social 
bond.  From  this  religious  necessity  were  derived,  for 
some  the  right  to  command,  for  others  the  obligation  to 
obey.  From  this  had  come  the  rules  of  justice  and  of 
legal  procedure,  those  of  public  deliberations  and  those 
of  war.  Cities  did  not  ask  if  the  institutions  which  they 
adopted  were  useful  ;  these  institutions  were  adopted 
because  religion  had  wished  it  thus.  Neither  interest 
nor  convenience  had  contributed  to  establish  them. 


CHA**.  IX.  NEW  PRINCIPLES  OF  GOVERNMENT.  425 


And  if  the  sacerdotal  class  had  tried  to  defend  them,  it 
was  not  in  the  name  of  the  public  interest;  it  was  in 
the  name  of  religious  tradition.  But  in  the  period 
which  we  now  enter,  tradition  no  longer  holds  empire, 
and  religion  no  longer  governs.  The  regulating  prin¬ 
ciple  from  which  all  institutions  now  derive  their  au¬ 
thority —  the  only  one  which  is  above  individual  wills5 
and  which  obliges  them  all  to  submit  —  is  public  inter¬ 
est.  What  the  Latins  call  res  publica ,  the  Greeks 
ré  xoiv or,  replaces  the  old  religion.  This  is  what,  from 
this  time,  establishes  institutions  and  laws,  and  by  this 
all  the  important  acts  of  cities  are  judged.  In  the  de¬ 
liberations  of  senates,  or  of  popular  assemblies,  when  a 
law  is  discussed,  or  a  form  of  government,  or  a  question 
of  private  right,  or  a  political  institution,  no  one  any 
longer  asks  what  religion  prescribes,  but  what  the  gen¬ 
eral  interest  demands. 

A  saying  is  attributed  to  Solon  which  well  charac¬ 
terizes  this  new  régime .  Some  one  asked  him  if  he 
had  given  his  country  the  best  constitution.  “No,”  he 
replied,  “but  the  one  which  is  the  best  suited  to  it.”  Now 
it  was  something  quite  new  to  expect  in  forms  of  gov¬ 
ernment,  and  in  laws,  only  a  relative  merit.  The  an¬ 
cient  constitutions,  founded  upon  the  rules  of  a  worship, 
were  proclaimed  infallible  and  immutable.  They  pos¬ 
sessed  the  rigor  and  inflexibility  of  the  religion.  Solon 
indicated  by  this  answer  that,  in  future,  political  con¬ 
stitutions  should  conform  to  the  wants,  the  manners, 
and  the  interests'  of  the  men  of  each  age.  There  was 
no  longer  a  question  of  absolute  truth  ;  the  rules  of 
government  were  for  the  future  to  be  flexible  and  va¬ 
riable.  It  is  said  that  Solon  wished  at  the  most  that 
his  laws  might  be  observed  for  a  hundred  years. 

The  precepts  of  public  interest  are  not  so  absolutei 


THE  UE  VOLUTION  S. 


BOOK  IV. 


426 


so  clear,  so  manifest,  ns  are  those  of  religion.  We  may 
always  discuss  them  ;  they  m  e  not  perceived  at  once. 
The  way  that  appeared  the  simplest  and  surest  to  know 
what  the  public  interest  demanded  was  to  assemble  the 
citizens,  and  consult  them.  This  course  was  thought 
to  be  necessary,  and  was  almost  daily  employed.  In 
the  preceding  period  the  auspices  had  borne  the  chief 
weight  of  the  deliberations;  the  opinion  of  the  priest, 
of  the  king,  of  the  sacred  magistrate  was  all-powerful. 
Men  voted  little,  and  then  rather  as  a  formality  than 
to  express  an  opinion.  After  that  time  they  voted  on 
every  question  ;  the  opinion  of  all  was  needed  in  order 
to  know  what  was  for /the  interest  of  all.  The  suffrage 
became  the  great  means  of  government.  It  was  the 
source  of  institutions  and  the  rule  of  right;  it  decided 
what  was  useful  and  even  what  was  just.  It  was 
above  the  magistrates  and  above  the  laws;  it  was  sov¬ 
ereign  in  the  city. 

The  nature  of  government  was  also  changed.  Its 
essential  function  was  no  longer  the  regular  perform¬ 
ance  of  religious  ceremonies.  It  was  especially  consti¬ 
tuted  to  maintain  order  and  peace  within  and  dignity 
and  power  without.  What  had  before  been  of  secon¬ 
dary  importance  was  now  of  the  first.  Politics  took 
precedence  of  religion,  and  the  government  of  men  be¬ 
came  a  human  affair.  It  consequently  happened  either 
that  new  offices  were  created,  or,  at  any  rate,  that  old 
ones  assumed  a  new  character.  We  can  see  this  by 
the  example  of  Athens,  and  by  that  of  Rome.  At 
Athens,  during  the  domination  of  the  aristocracy,  the 
archons  had  been  especially  priests.  The  care  of  de¬ 
ciding  causes,  of  administering  the  law,  and  of  making 
war  was  of  minor  importance,  and  might,  without  in¬ 
convenience,  be  joined  to  the  priesthood.  When  the 


V 


CHAP.  IA.  NEW  PRINCIPLES  OF  GOVERNMENT. 


427 


Athenians  rejected  the  old  religious  form  of  govern¬ 
ment,  they  did  not  suppress  the  archonship,  for  they 
had  an  extreme  repugnance  to  abolishing  what  was 
ancient.  But  by  the  side  of  the  archons  they  elected 
other  magistrates,  who,  by  the  nature  of  their  duties, 
corresponded  better  with  the  wants  of  the  age.  These 
were  the  strategi.  The  word  signifies  chief  of  the 
army,  but  the  authority  of  these  officers  was  not  purely 
military;  they  had  the  care  of  the  relations  with  other 
cities,  of  the  finances,  and  of  whatever  concerned  the 
police  of  the  city.  We  may  say  that  the  archons  had 
in  their  hands  the  state  religion  and  all  that  related  to 
it,  and  that  the  strategi  had  the  political  power.  The 
archons  preserved  the  authority  such  as  the  ancient 
ages  had  conceived  it  ;  the  strategi  had  what  new 
wants  had  caused  to  be  established.  Finally  a  time 
came  when  the  archons  had  only  the  semblance  of 
power,  and  the  stategi  had  all  the  reality.  These  new 
magistrates  were  no  longer  priests;  they  hardly  per¬ 
formed  the  ceremonies  that  were  indispensable  in  time 
of  war.  The  government  tended  more  and  more  to 
free  itself  from  religion.  The  strategi  might  be  chosen 
outside  the  Eupatrids.  In  the  examination  which  they 
had  to  undergo  before  they  were  appointed  (dojo/./uo '«), 
they  were  not  asked,  as  the  archons  were,  if  they  had  a 
domestic  worship,  and  if  they  were  of  a  pure  family; 
it  was  sufficient  if  they  had  always  performed  their  du¬ 
ties  as  citizens,  and  held  real  property  in  Attica.1  The 
archons  were  designated  by  lot,  —  that  is  to  say,  by  the 
voice  of  the  gods  ;  it  was  otherwise  with  the  strategi. 
As  the  government  became  more  difficult  and  more 
complicated,  as  piety  was  no  longer  the  principal  quab 


1  Deinarchus,  I.  171  (coll.  Didot). 


428 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


ity,  and  as  skill,  prudence,  courage,  and  the  art  of  com¬ 
manding  became  necessary,  men  no  longer  believed  the 
choice  by  lot  was  sufficient  to  make  a  good  magistrate. 
The  city  no  longer  desired  to  be  bound  by  the  pre¬ 
tended  will  of  the  gods,  and  claimed  to  have  a  free 
choice  of  its  chiefs.  That  the  arehon,  who  was  a  priest, 
should  be  designated  by  the  gods,  was  natural;  but 
the  strategus,  who  held  in  his  hands  the  material  in- 
terests  of  the  city,  was  better  elected  by  the  citizens. 

If  we  closely  observe  the  institutions  of  Rome,  we 
see  that  changes  of  the  same  kind  were  going  on  there. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  tribunes  of  the  people  so  aug¬ 
mented  their  importance  that  the  direction  of  the  re¬ 
public —  at  least,  whatever  related  to  internal  affairs  — 
finally  belonged  to  them.  Now,  those  tribunes  who 
had  no  priestly  character  bore  a  great  resemblance  to 
the  strategi.  On  the  other  hand,  the  consulship  itself 
could  subsist  only  by  changing  its  character.  What¬ 
ever  was  sacerdotal  in  it  was  by  degrees  effaced.  The 
respect  of  the  Romans  for  the  traditions  and  forms  of 
the  past  required,  it  is  true,  that  the  consul  should  con¬ 
tinue  to  perform  the  ceremonies  instituted  by  their 
ancestors;  but  we  can  easily  understand  that,  the  day 
when  plebeians  became  consuls,  these  ceremonies  were 
no  longer  anything  more  than  vain  formalities.  The 
consulship  was  less  and  less  a  priesthood,  and  more  and 
more  a  command.  This  transformation  was  slow,  in¬ 
sensible,  unperceived,  but  it  was  not  the  less  complete. 
The  consulship  was  certainly  not,  in  the  time  of  the 
Scipios,  what  it  had  been  in  Publicola’s  day.  The 
military  tribuneship,  which  the  senate  instituted  in 
443,  and  about  which  the  ancients  give  us  very  little 
information,  was  perhaps  the  transition  between  the 
consulship  of  the  first  period  and  that  of  the  second. 


s 


CHAP.  IX.  NEW  PRINCIPLES  OF  GOVERNMENT. 


429 


We  may  also  remark  that  there  was  a  change  in  the 
manner  of  nominating  the  consuls.  Indeed,  in  the  first 
asres,  the  vote  of  the  centuries  in  the  election  of  the 
magistrates  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  mere  formality. 
In  reality,  the  consul  of  each  year  was  created  by  the 
consul  of  the  preceding  year,  who  transmitted  the  au¬ 
spices  to  him  after  having  obtained  the  assent  of  the 
gods.  The  centuries  voted  on  the  two  or  three  candi¬ 
dates  presented  by  the  consul  in  office;  there  was  no 
debate.  The  people  might  detest  a  candidate;  but 
they  were  none  the  less  compelled  to  vote  tor  him.  In 
the  period  at  which  we  have  now  arrived,  the  election 
is  quite  different,  although  the  forms  are  still  the  same. 
There  is  still,  as  formerly,  a  religious  ceremony  and  a 
vote;  but  the  religious  ceremony  is  the  formality,  and 
the  vote  is  the  reality.  The  candidate  is  still  presented 
by  the  consul  who  presides;  but  the  consul  is  obliged, 
if  not  by  law,  at  least  by  custom,  to  accept  all  candi¬ 
dates,  and  to  declare  that  the  auspices  are  equally 
favorable  to  all.  Thus  the  centuries  name  those  whom 
they  honor.  The  election  no  longer  belongs  to  the 
gods;  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the  people.  The  gods  and 
the  auspices  are  no  longer  consulted,  except  on  the  con¬ 
dition  that  they  will  be  impartial  towards  all  the  candi¬ 
dates.  Men  make  the  choice. 


430 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


CHAPTER  X. 

An  Aristocracy  of  Wealth  attempts  to  establish  itself. 

Establishment  of  Democracy.  Fourth  Devolution. 

The  government  which  succeeded  to  the  rule  of  the 
religious  aristocracy  was  not  at  first  a  democracy.  We 
have  seen,  from  the  example  of  Athens  and  Rome,  that 
the  revolution  which  took  place  was  not  the  work  of 
the  lowest  classes.  There  were,  indeed,  some  cities 
where  these  classes  rose  first  ;  but  they  could  found 
nothing  durable.  The  protracted  disorders  into  which 
Syracuse,  Miletus,  and  Samos  fell  are  a  proof  of  this. 
The  new  governments  were  not  established  with  any  so¬ 
lidity,  except  where  a  class  was  at  once  found  to  take  in 
hand,  for  a  time,  the  power  and  moral  authority  which 
the  Eupatrids  and  the  patricians  had  lost.  What  could 
this  new  aristocracy  be  ?  The  hereditary  religion  be¬ 
ing  thrown  aside,  there  was  no  longer  any  other  social 
distinction  than  wealth.  Men  demanded,  therefore, 
that  wealth  should  establish  rank  ;  for  they  could  not 
admit  at  once  that  equality  should  be  absolute. 

Thus  Solon  did  not  think  best  to  do  away  with 
the  ancient  distinction  founded  on  hereditary  religion, 
except  by  establishing  a  new  division,  which  should  be 
founded  on  riches.  Pie  divided  the  citizens  into  four 
ranks,  and  gave  them  unequal  rights  ;  none  but  the 
rich  could  hold  the  highest  offices;  none  below  the  two 
intermediate  classes  could  belong  to  the  senate,  or  sit 
in  the  tribunals.1 

1  Plutarch,  Solon ,  18;  Aristides ,  13.  Aristotle,  cited  by 
Harpocration  at  the  words  “lnnnç,  Ofjrsç.  Pollux,  VIII.  129. 


CHAP.  X. 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


431 


The  case  was  the  same  at  Rome.  We  have  seen 
that  Servius  destroyed  the  power  of  the  patricians  only 
by  founding  a  rival  aristocracy.  He  created  twelve 
centuries  of  knights,  chosen  from  the  richest  plebeians. 
This  was  the  origin  of  the  equestrian  order,  which  was 
from  that  time  the  rich  order  at  Rome.  The  plebeians 
who  did  not  possess  the  sum  required  for  a  knight  were 
divided  into  live  classes,  according  to  the  amount  of 
their  fortunes.  The  poorest  people  were  left  out  of 
all  the  classes.  They  had  no  political  rights  ;  if  they 
figured  in  the  comitia  by  centuries,  it  is  certain  that 
they  did  not  vote.1  The  republican  constitution  pre¬ 
served  these  distinctions,  established  by  a  king,  and  the 
plebeians  did  not  at  first  appear  very  desirous  of  estab¬ 
lishing  equality  among  themselves. 

What  is  seen  so  clearly  at  Athens  and  at  Rome 
appears  in  almost  all  the  other  cities.  At  Cumae,  for 
example,  political  rights  were  given  at  first  only  to 
those  who,  owning  horses,  formed  a  sort  of  equestrian 
order;  later,  those  who  ranked  next  below  them  in 
wealth  obtained  the  same  rights,  and  this  last  measure 
raised  the  number  of  citizens  only  to  one  thousand. 
At  Rhegium  the  government  was  for  along  time  in  the 
hands  of  a  thousand  of  the  wealthiest  men  of  the  city. 
At  Thurii,  a  large  fortune  was  necessary  to  enable  one 
to  make  a  part  of  the  body  politic.  We  see  clearly  in 
the  poetry  of  Theognis  that  at  Megara,  after  the  fall  of 
the  nobles,  the  wealthy  took  their  places.  At  Thebes, 
in  order  to  enjoy  the  rights  of  a  citizen,  one  could  be 
neither  an  artisan  nor  a  merchant.2 

Thus  the  political  rights  which,  in  the  preceding 

1  Livy,  I.  43. 

*  Aristotle.  Politics ,  III.  3,  4;  VI.  4,  5  (edit.  Didot). 


432 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


epoch,  belonged  to  birth,  were,  during  some  time,  en¬ 
joyed  by  fortune  alone.  This  aristocracy  of  wealth 
was  established  in  all  the  cities,  not  by  any  calculation, 
but  by  the  very  nature  of  the  human  mind,  which, 
escaping  from  a  regime  of  great  inequality,  could  not 
arrive  at  once  at  complete  equality. 

We  have  to  remark  that  these  new  nobles  did  not 
found  their  superiority  simply  upon  wealth.  Every¬ 
where  their  ambition  was  to  become  the  military  class. 
They  undertook  to  defend  the  city  at  the  same  time 
that  they  governed  it.  They  reserved  for  themselves 
the  best  arms  and  the  greater  part  of  the  perils  in  bat¬ 
tle,  desiring  to  imitate  in  this  the  nobility  which  they 
had  replaced.  In  all  the  cities  the-  wealthiest  men 
formed  the  cavalry,  the  well-to-do  class  composed  the 
body  of  hoplites,  or  legionaries.  The  poor  were  ex¬ 
cluded  from  the  army,  or  at  most  they  were  employed 
as  skirmishers  or  light-armed  soldiers,  or  among  the 
rowers  of  the  fleet.1  Thus  the  organization  of  the  army 
corresponded  with  perfect  exactitude  to  the  political 
organization  of  the  city.  The  dangers  were  propor¬ 
tioned  to  the  privileges,  and  the  material  strength  was 
found  in  the  same  hands  as  the  wealth.2 

1  Lyeias,  in  Alcib .,  I.  8;  II.  7.  Isæus,  VII.  89.  Xenophon, 
Ilellen.,  VII.  4.  Harpocration,  Oi}rsg. 

2  The  relation  between  military  service  and  political  rights  is 
manifest  :  at  Rome  the  centuriate  assembly  was  no  other  than 
the  army.  So  true  is  this,  that  men  who  had  passed  the  age  for 
military  service  no  longer  had  the  right  to  vote  in  these  comitia. 
Historians  do  not  tell  us  that  there  was  a  similar  law  at  Athens  ; 
but  there  are  figures  that  are  significant.  Thucydides  says 
(II.  31,  13)  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  Athens  had  thirteen 
thousand  hoplites;  if  to  these  we  add  the  knights,  numbered  by 
Aristophanes  (in  the  Wasps )  at  about  a  thousand,  we  arrive  at 
the  number  of  fourteen  thousand  soldiers.  Now,  Plutarch  tellf 


CHAP.  X.  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


433 


There  was  thus,  in  almost  all  the  cities  whose  nistory 
is  known  to  ns,  a  period  during  which  the  rich  class,  or 
at  any  rate  the  well-to-do  class,  was  in  possession  of 
the  government.  This  political  system  had  its  merits, 
as  every  system  may  have,  when  it  conforms  to  the 
manners  of  the  epoch,  and  the  religious  ideas  are  not 
opposed  to  it.  The  sacerdotal  nobility  of  the  preceding 
period  had  assuredly  rendered  great  services.  They 
were  the  first  to  establish  laws  and  found  regular  gov¬ 
ernments.  They  had  enabled  human  societies  to  live, 
during  several  centuries,  with  calmness  and  dignity. 
The  aristocracy  of  wealth  had  another  merit;  it  im¬ 
pressed  upon  society  and  the  minds  of  men  a  new 
impulse.  Having  sprung  from  labor  in  all  its  forms, 
it  honored  and  stimulated  the  laborer.  This  new  gov¬ 
ernment  gave  the  most  political  importance  to  the  most 
laborious,  the  most  active,  or  the  most  skilful  man  ; 
it  was,  therefore,  favorable  to  industry  and  commerce. 
It  was  also  favorable  to  intellectual  progress;  for  the 
acquisition  of  this  wealth,  which  was  gained  or  lost, 
ordinarily,  according  to  each  one’s  merit,  made  instruc¬ 
tion  the  first  need,  and  intelligence  the  most  powerful 
spring  of  human  affairs.  We  are  not,  therefore,  surprised 
that  under  this  government  Greece  and  Rome  enlarged 
the  limits  of  their  intellectual  culture,  and  advanced 
their  civilization. 

The  rich  class  did  not  hold  the  empire  so  long  as  the 
ancient  hereditary  nobility  had  held  it.  Their  title  to 
dominion  was  not  of  the  same  value.  They  had  not 
the  sacred  character  with  which  the  ancient  Eupatrid 

J8,  that  at  the  same  date  there  were  fourteen  thousand  citizens. 
The  proletariat,  therefore,  who  could  not  serve  among  the 
hoplites,  were  not  counted  among  the  citizens.  The  Athenian 
constitution,  then,  in  430  was  not  yet  completely  democratic. 

28 


434 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


was  clothed.  They  did  not  rule  by  virtue  of  a  belief 
and  by  the  will  of  the  gods.  They  had  no  quality  that 
had  power  over  consciences,  that  compelled  men  to 
submit.  Man  is  little  inclined  to  bow,  except  before 
what  he  believes  to  be  right,  or  before  what  his  notions 
teach  him  is  far  above  him.  He  had  long  been  made 
to  bend  before  the  religious  superiority  of  the  EupatricL, 
who  repeated  the  prayers  and  possessed  the  gods.  But 
wealth  did  not  overawe  him.  In  presence  of  wealth, 
the  most  ordinary  sentiment  is  not  respect;  it  is  envy. 
The  political  inequality  that  resulted  from  the  difference 
of  fortunes  soon  appeared  to  be  an  iniquity,  and  men 
strove  to  abolish  it. 

Besides,  the  series  of  revolutions,  once  commenced, 
could  not  be  arrested.  The  old  principles  were  over¬ 
turned,  and  there  were  no  longer  either  traditions  or 
fixed  rules.  There  was  a  general  sense  of  the  insta¬ 
bility  of  affairs,  which  prevented  any  constitution  from 
enduring  for  any  great  length  of  time.  The  new  aris¬ 
tocracy  was  attacked,  as  the  old  had  been  ;  the  poor 
wished  to  be  citizens,  and  in  their  turn  began  to  make 
efforts  to  enter  the  body  politic. 

It  is  impossible  to  enter  into  the  details  of  this  new 
struggle.  The  history  of  cities,  as  it  gets  farther  from 
their  origin,  becomes  more  and  more  diversified.  They 
follow  the  same  series  of  revolutions  ;  nut  these  revolu¬ 
tions  appear  under  a  great  variety  of  forms.  We  can, 
at  any  rate,  make  this  remark  —  that  in  the  cities  where 
the  principal  element  of  wealth  was  the  possession  of 
the  soil,  the  rich  class  was  longer  respected,  and  held 
its  dominion  longer;  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  in  cities 
like  Athens,  where  there  were  few  lander  estates,  and 
where  men  became  rich  especially  by  industry,  man¬ 
ufactures,  and  commerce,  the  instability  of  fortune* 


CHAP.  X.  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


435 


soonei  awakened  the  cupidity  or  hopes  of  the  lower 
orders,  and  the  aristocracy  was  sooner  attacked. 

The  rich  class  of  Rome  offered  a  much  stronger  re- 
sistance  than  that  of  Greece;  this  was  due  to  causes 
which  we  shall  state  presently.  But  when  we  read 
Grecian  history,  we  are  somewhat  surprised  that  the 
new  nobles  defended  themselves  so  feebly.  True,  they 
could  not,  like  the  Eupatrids,  oppose  to  their  adversa¬ 
ries  the  great  and  powerful  argument  of  tradition  and 
piety.  They  could  not  call  to  their  aid  their  ancestors 
and  the  gods.  They  had  no  point  of  support  in  their 
own  religious  notions;  nor  had  they  any  faith  in  the 
justice  of  their  privileges. 

They  had,  indeed,  superiority  in  arms;  but  this  su¬ 
periority  finally  failed  them.  The  constitutions  which 
the  states  adopted  would  have  lasted  longer,  no  doubt, 
if  each  state  could  have  remained  isolated,  or,  at  least, 
if  it  could  have  lived  in  peace.  But  war  deranges  the 
X  ^  s  1 1  u  1 1  o  n  i ,  and  hastens  changes.  Now, 

between  these  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy  war  was  al¬ 
most  perpetual.  Military  service  weighed  most  heavily 
upon  the  rich  class,  as  this  class  occupied  the  front  rank 
in  battle.  Often,  at  the  close  of  a  campaign,  they  re¬ 
turned  to  the  city  decimated  and  weakened,  and  con¬ 
sequently  not  prepared  to  make  head  against  the  popu¬ 
lar  party.  At  Tarentum,  for  example,  the  higher  class 
having  lost  the  greater  part  of  its  members  in  a  war 
against  the  Iapygians,  a  democratic  government  was 
at  once  established  in  the  city.  The  course  of  events 
was  the  same  at  Argos,  some  thirty  years  before  ;  at 
the  close  of  an  unsuccessful  war  against  the  Spartans, 
the  number  of  real  citizens  had  become  so  small  that 
it  was  found  ne  pessary  to  grant  the  rights  of  citizens  to 


436 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


a  multitude  of  Periœci }  It  was  to  avoid  falling  into 
this  extremity  that  Sparta  was  so  sparing  of  the 
blood  of  the  real  Spartans.  As  to  Rome,  its  revolu¬ 
tions  are  explained,  in  a  great  measure,  by  its  con¬ 
tinual  wars.  First,  war  destroyed  its  patricians  ;  of 
the  three  hundred  families  which  this  caste  comprised 
under  the  kings,  there  remained  hardly  a  third  part, 
after  the  conquest  of  Samnium.  War  afterwards  har¬ 
vested  the  primitive  plebeians,  those  rich  and  coura¬ 
geous  plebeians  who  filed  the  five  classes  and  formed 
the  legions. 

One  of  the  effects  of  war  was  that  the  cities  were 
almost  always  brought  to  the  strait  of  putting  arms 
into  the  hands  of  the  lower  orders.  It  was  in  this 
way  that  at  Athens,  and  in  all  the  maritime  cities,  the 
need  of  a  navy  and  the  battles  upon  the  water  gave 
the  poor  class  that  importance  which  the  constitution 
refused  them.  The  Thetes,  raised  to  the  rank  of  row¬ 
ers,  of  sailors,  and  even  of  soldiers,  and  holding  in  their 
hands  the  safety  of  their  country,  felt  their  importance, 
and  took  courage.  Such  was  the  origin  of  the  Athe¬ 
nian  democracy.  Sparta  was  afraid  of  war.  We 
can  see  in  Thucydides  how  slow  she  was,  and  how 
unwilling,  to  commence  a  campaign.  She  allowed  her¬ 
self  to  be  dragged,  in  spite  of  herself,  into  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesian  war;  but  how  many  efforts  she  made  to  with¬ 
draw  !  This  was  because  she  was  forced  to  arm  her 
Tunotuelopsgf  her  Neodamodes,  her  Mothaces,  her  La¬ 
conians,  and  even  her  Helots;  she  well  knew  that  every 
war,  by  giving  arms  to  the  classes  that  she  was  op¬ 
pressing,  threatened  her  with  revolution,  and  that  she 
would  be  compelled,  on  disbanding  the  army,  either  to 


1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  2,  8  (V.  2). 


CHAP.  X.  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  DEMOCRACY. 


437 


submit  to  the  law  of  her  Helots  or  to  find  means  to 
have  them  massacred  without  disturbance.  The  ple¬ 
beians  calumniated  the  Roman  senate  when  they  re¬ 
proached  it  with  always  seeking  new  wars.  The  sen¬ 
ate  was  too  wise  for  that.  It  knew  how  many  conces¬ 
sions  and  checks  in  the  forum  its  wars  cost.  But  it 
could  not  avoid  them. 

It  is  therefore  beyond  a  doubt  that  war  slowly  les¬ 
sened  the  distance  which  the  aristocracy  of  wealth  had 
placed  between  itself  and  the  lower  orders.  Thus  it 
soon  happened  that  constitutions  were  found  to  be  at 
disaccord  with  the  social  state,  and  required  modifica¬ 
tion.  Besides,  it  must  have  been  seen  that  all  privi¬ 
leges  were  necessarily  in  contradiction  to  the  principle 
which  then  governed  men.  The  public  interest  was 
not  a  principle  that  could  long  authorize  an  inequality 
among  them.  It  inevitably  conducted  societies  to  a 
democracy. 

So  true  is  this,  that  a  little  sooner,  or  a  little  later,  it 
was  necessary  to  give  all  free  men  political  rights.  As 
soon  as  the  Roman  plebeians  wished  to  hold  comitia  of 
their  own,  they  were  constrained  to  admit  the  lowest 
class,  and  could  not  hold  to  the  division  into  classes. 
Most  of  the  cities  thus  saw  real  popular  assemblies 
formed  and  universal  suffrage  established. 

How,  the  right  of  suffrage  had  at  that  time  a  value 
incomparably  greater  than  it  can  have  in  modern  states. 
By  means  of  it  the  last  of  the  citizens  had  a  hand  in 
all  affairs,  elected  magistrates,  made  laws,  decided 
cases,  declared  for  war  or  peace,  and  prepared  treaties 
of  alliance.  This  extension  of  the  right  of  suffrage, 
therefore,  made  the  government  really  democratic. 

We  must  make  a  last  remark.  The  ruling  class 

© 

would  perhaps  have  avoided  the  advent  of  democracy 


438 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


if  they  had  been  able  to  found  what  Thucydides  calls 
àUyaqxlct  laovofiog ,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  government  for 
a  few,  and  liberty  for  all.  But  the  Greeks  had  not  a 
clear  idea  of  liberty  ;  individual  liberty  never  had  any 
guarantee  among  them.  We  learn  from  Thucydides, 
who  certainly  is  not  suspected  of  too  much  zeal  for  dem¬ 
ocratic  government,  that  under  the  rule  of  the  oligarchy 
the  people  were  subjected  to  many  vexatious,  arbitrary 
condemnations,  and  violent  executions.  We  read  in 
this  historian  “that  democratic  government  was  needed 
to  give  the  poor  a  refuge  and  the  rich  a  check.”  The 
Greeks  never  knew  how  to  reconcile  civil  with  politi¬ 
cal  equality.  That  the  poor  might  be  protected  in 
their  personal  interests,  it  seemed  necessary  to  them 
that  they  should  have  the  right  of  suffrage,  that  they 
should  be  judges  in  the  tribunal,  and  that  they  might 
be  elected  as  magistrates.  If  we  also  call  to  mind  that 
among  the  Greeks  the  state  was  an  absolute  power, 
and  that  no  individual  right  was  of  any  value  against 
it,  we  can  understand  what  an  immense  interest  every 
man  had,  even  the  most  humble,  in  possessing  political 
rights,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  making  a  part  of  the  govern¬ 
ment;  the  collective  sovereign  being  so  omnipotent 
that  a  man  could  be  nothing  unless  he  was  a  part  of 
this  sovereign.  His  security  and  his  dignity  depended 
upon  this.  He  wished  to  possess  political  rights,  not 
in  order  to  enjoy  true  liberty,  but  to  have  at  least  what 
might  take  its  place. 


CHAP.  XI.  RULES  OF  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.  439 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Rules  of  Democratic  Government.  Examples  of  Athe¬ 
nian  Democracy. 

As  the  revolutions  followed  their  course,  and  men 
departed  from  the  ancient  system,  to  govern  them  be¬ 
came  more  difficult.  More  minute  rules,  more  ma¬ 
chinery,  and  that  more  delicate,  became  necessary. 
This  we  can  see  from  the  example  of  the  Athenian 
government. 

Athens  had  a  great  number  of  magistrates.  In  the 
first  place  she  had  preserved  all  those  of  the  preceding 
epoch — the  arehon,  who  gave  his  name  to  the  year 
and  watched  over  the  perpetuation  of  the  domestic 
worship;  the  king,  who  performed  the  sacrifices;  the 
polemarch,  who  figured  as  chief  of  the  army,  and 
decided  the  causes  of  foreigners;  the  six  thesmothetae, 
who  appeared  to  pass  judgment,  but  who,  in  reality, 
merely  presided  over  juries:  there  were  also  the  ten 
iFQÔnoioi,  who  consulted  the  oracles  and  offered  cer¬ 
tain  sacrifices  ;  the  who  accompanied  the 

arclion  and  the  king  in  the  ceremonies  ;  the  ten  ath- 
lothetae,  who  remained  four  years  in  office  to  prepare 
the  festival  of  Bacchus;  and,  finally,  the  prytanes,  who, 
to  the  number  of  fifty,  were  continually  occupied  to 
attend  to  keeping  up  the  public  fire  and  the  sacred  re¬ 
pasts.  We  see  from  this  that  Athens  remained  faith¬ 
ful  to  the  traditions  of  ancient  times.  So  many  revo¬ 
lutions  had  not  yet  completely  destroyed  this  supersti¬ 
tious  respect.  No  one  dared  to  break  with  the  old 
forms  of  the  national  religion  ;  the  democracy  contin¬ 
ued  the  worship  instituted  by  the  Eupatrids. 


440 


THE  DEVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


Afterwards  came  the  magistrates  specially  created 
for  the  democracy,  who  were  not  priests,  and  who 
watched  over  the  material  interests  of  the  city.  First 
were  the  strategi,  who  attended  to  affairs  of  war  and 
politics;  then  followed  the  ten  astynomi,  who  had 
charge  of  the  police;  the  ten  agoranomi,  who  watched 
over  the  markets  of  the  city  and  of  the  Piræeus  ;  the 
fifteen  sitophylaces,  who  superintended  the  sales  of 
grain;  the  fifteen  metronomi,  who  controlled  weights 
and  measures  ;  ten  guards  of  the  treasury  ;  the  ten  re¬ 
ceivers  ol  the  accounts  ;  the  eleven  who  were  charged 
with  the  execution  of  sentences.  In  addition  to  this,  the 
greater  part  of  these  magistracies  were  repeated  in  each 
tribe  and  in  each  deme.  The  smallest  group  of  people 
in  Attica  had  its  archon,  its  priest,  its  secretary,  its  re¬ 
ceiver,  its  military  chief.  One  could  hardly  take  a 
step  in  the  city  or  in  the  country  without  meeting  an 
official. 

These  offices  were  annual;  so  that  there  was  hardly 
a  man  who  might  not  hope  to  fill  some  one  of  them  in 
his  turn.  The  magistrate-priests  were  chosen  by  lot. 
The  magistrates  who  attended  only  to  public  order 
were  elected  by  the  people.  Still  there  was  a  precau¬ 
tion  against  the  caprices  of  the  lot,  as  well  as  against 
that  of  universal  suffrage.  Every  newly  elected  official 
was  subjected  to  an  examination,  either  before  the  sen¬ 
ate,  or  before  the  magistrates  going  out  of  office,  or, 
lastly,  before  the  Areopagus  —  not  that  they  demanded 
proofs  of  capacity  or  talent,  but  an  inquiry  was  made 
concerning  the  probity  of  the  man,  and  concerning  his 
family  ;  every  magistrate  was  also  required  to  have  a 
property  in  real  estate. 

It  would  seem  that  these  magistrates,  elected  by  the 
suffrages  of  their  equals,  named  for  only  a  single  year, 


CHAP.  XI.  RULES  OF  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.  441 


responsible  and  even  removable,  could  have  had  little 
prestige  and  authority.  We  need  only  read  Thucydi¬ 
des  and  Xenophon,  however,  to  assure  ourselves  that 
they  were  respected  and  obeyed.  There  was  alwavs 
in  the  character  of  the  ancients,  even  in  that  of  the 
Athenians,  a  great  facility  in  submitting  to  discipline. 
It  was  perhaps  a  consequence  of  the  habits  of  obedi¬ 
ence  with  which  the  religious  government  had  inspired 
them.  They  were  accustomed  to  respect  the  state,  and 
all  those  who,  in  any  degree,  represented  it.  They 
never  thought  of  despising  a  magistrate  because  they 
had  elected  him  ;  suffrage  was  reputed  one  of  the  most 
sacred  sources  of  authority. 

Above  the  magistrates,  who  had  no  other  duty  than 
that  of  seeing  to  the  execution  of  the  laws,  there  was 
the  senate.  It  was  merely  a  deliberative  body,  a  sort 
of  council  of  state  ;  it  passed  no  acts,  made  no  laws, 
exercised  no  sovereignty.  Men  saw  no  inconvenience 
in  renewing  it  every  year,  for  neither  superior  intelli¬ 
gence  nor  great  experience  was  required  of  its  mem- 
bers.  It  was  composed  of  fifty  prytanes  from  each 
tribe,  who  performed  the  sacred  duties  in  turn,  and 
deliberated  all  the  year  upon  the  religious  and  political 
interests  of  the  city.  It  was  probably  because  the 
senate  was  only  the  assembly  of  the  prytanes, —  that 
is  to  say,  of  the  annual  priests  of  the  sacred  fire,  —  that 
it  was  filled  by  lot.  It  is  but  just  to  say,  that  after  the 
lot  had  decided,  each  name  was  examined,  and  any 
one  was  thrown  out  who  did  not  appear  sufficiently 
honorable.1 

Above  even  the  senate  there  was  the  assembly  of 
the  people.  This  was  the  real  sovereign.  But,  just 

1  Æschines,  III.  2;  Andocides,  II.  19;  I.  45-55. 


442 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


as  in  a  well-constituted  monarchy,  the  monarch  is  sur¬ 
rounded  with  safeguards  against  his  own  caprices  and 
errors,  this  democracy  also  had  invariable  rules,  to 
which  it  submitted. 

The  assembly  was  convoked  by  the  prytanes  or  the 
strategi.  It  was  holden  in  an  enclosure  consecrated 
by  religion  ;  since  morning  the  priests  had  walked 
around  the  Pnyx,  immolating  victims  and  calling  down 
the  protection  of  the  gods.  The  people  were  seated 
on  stone  benches.  Upon  a  sort  of  platform  were  the 
prytanes,  and  in  front  of  them  the  prcedri,  who  pre¬ 
sided  over  the  assembly.  An  altar  stood  near  the 
speaker’s  stand,  and  the  stand  itself  was  reckoned  a 
sort  of  altar.  When  all  were  seated,  a  priest  (>njoe£) 
proclaimed,  “Keep  silence,  religious  silence  • 

pray  the  gods  and  goddesses  [here  he  named  the  prin¬ 
cipal  divinities  of  the  country]  that  all  may  pass  most 
prosperously  in  the  assembly  for  the  greatest  advan¬ 
tage  of  Athens  and  the  hapjnness  of  its  citizens.” 
Then  the  people,  or  some  one  in  their  name,  replied, 
“We  invoke  the  gods  that  they  may  protect  the  city. 
May  the  advice  of  the  wisest  prevail.  Cursed  be  he 
who  shall  give  us  bad  counsel,  who  shall  attempt  to 
change  the  decrees  and  the  law,  or  who  shall  reveal 
our  secrets  to  the  enemy.”  1 

Then  the  herald,  by  order  of  the  presidents,  declared 
the  subjects  with  which  the  assembly  was  to  occupy 
itself  A  question,  before  being  presented  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  was  discussed  and  studied  by  the  senate.  The 
people  had  not  what  is  called,  in  modern  language,  the 

1  Æschines,  I.  23;  III.  4.  Deinarchus,  II.  14.  Demosthe¬ 
nes,  in  Aristocr .,  97.  Aristophanes,  Acharn.,  4?,  44,  and  Scho¬ 
liast,  Thesmoph.y  295-310. 


CHAP.  XI.  .RULES  OF  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.  443 


initiative.  The  senate  offered  a  draught  of  a  decree  (the 
bill)  ;  the  people  could  reject  or  adopt  it,  but  could  not 
deliberate  on  any  other  question. 

When  the  herald  had  read  the  proposed  law,  the 
discussion  was  opened.  The  herald  said,  “  Who 
wishes  to  speak?”  The  orators  ascended  the  speak¬ 
er’s  stand  according  to  age.  Any  man  could  speak, 
without  distinction  of  fortune  or  profession,  but  on  the 
condition  that  he  had  proved  that  he  enjoyed  political 
rights,  that  he  was  not  a  debtor  to  the  state,  that  his 
habits  of  life  were  correct,  that  he  was  lawfully  mar¬ 
ried,  that  he  was  a  land-owner  in  Attica,  that  he  had 
fulfilled  all  his  duties  towards  his  parents,  that  he  had 
taken  part  in  all  the  military  expeditions  to  which  he 
had  been  assigned,  and  that  he  had  never  thrown  his 
shield  away  in  any  battle.1 

These  precautions  against  eloquence  once  taken,  the 
people  gave  themselves  entirely  up  to  it.  The  Athe¬ 
nians,  as  Thucydides  says,  did  not  believe  that  words 
could  damage  actions.  On  the  contrary,  they  felt  the 
need  of  being  enlightened.  Politics  were  no  longer, 
as  under  the  preceding  government,  an  affair  of  tradi¬ 
tion  and  faith.  Men  reflected  and  weighed  reasons. 
Discussion  was  necessary,  for  every  question  was  more 
or  less  obscure,  and  discussion  alone  could  bring  the 
truth  to  light.  The  Athenian  people  desired  to  have 
every  question  presented  in  all  its  different  phases,  and 
to  have  both  sides  clearly  shown.  They  made  great 
account  of  their  orators,  and,  it  is  said,  paid  them  in 
money  for  every  discourse  delivered  to  the  people.1 

1  Æschines,  I.  27-33.  Deinarchus,  I.  71. 

8  At  least  tills  is  what  Aristophanes  gives  us  to  understand. 
Wasps,  711  (689).  See  the  Scholiast. 


444 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


They  did  even  better;  they  listened  to  them.  For  we 
are  not  to  picture  to  ourselves  a  noisy  and  turbulent 
multitude  ;  the  attitude  of  the  people  was  quite  the 
contrary.  The  comic  poet  represents  them  motionless 
upon  their  stone  seats,  listening  open-mouthed.1  His¬ 
torians  and  orators  frequently  describe  these  popular 
assemblies.  We  rarely  see  an  orator  interrupted; 
whether  it  was  Pericles  or  Cleon,  Æschines  or  Demos¬ 
thenes,  the  people  were  attentive  ;  whether  the  orators 
flattered  them  or  upbraided  them,  they  listened.  They 
allowed  the  most  opposite  opinions  to  be  expressed, 
with  a  patience  that  was  sometimes  admirable.  There 
were  never  cries  or  shouts.  The  orator,  whatever  he 
might  say,  could  always  reach  the  end  of  his  discourse. 

At  Sparta  eloquence  was  little  known.  The  princi¬ 
ples  of  government  were  not  the  same.  The  aristoc¬ 
racy  still  governed  and  had  fixed  traditions,  which 
saved  the  trouble  of  a  long  discussion  upon  every 
question.  At  Athens  the  people  desired  to  be  in¬ 
formed.  They  could  decide  only  after  a  contradictory 
debate  ;  they  acted  only  alter  they  had  been  convinced, 
or  thought  they  had  been.  To  put  universal  suffrage 
in  operation,  discussion  is  necessary  ;  eloquence  is  the 
spring  of  democratic  government.  The  orators,  there¬ 
fore,  soon  received  the  title  of  demagogues,  —  that  is 
to  say,  of  conductors  of  the  city  ;  and  indeed  they  did 
direct  its  action,  and  determined  all  its  resolutions. 

The  case  where  an  orator  should  make  a  proposition 
contrary  to  existing  laws  had  been  anticipated.  Athens 
had  special  magistrates  called  guardians  of  the  laws. 
Seven  in  number,  they  watched  over  the  assembly,  oc¬ 
cupying  high  seats,  and  seemed  to  represent  the  law, 

Aristophanes,  Knights ,  1119. 


s 


CttAI  XI.  BULBS  OF  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.  440 


which  was  above  even  the  people.  If  they  saw  that 
the  law  was  attacked,  they  stopped  the  orator  in  the 
midst  of  his  discourse,  and  ordered  the  immediate  dis¬ 
solution  of  the  assembly.  The  people  separated  with¬ 
out  having  a  right  to  reach  a  vote.1 

There  was  a  law,  little  applicable  indeed,  that  pun¬ 
ished  every  orator  convicted  of  having  given  the  people 
bad  advice.  There  was  another  that  forbade  access  to 
the  speaker’s  stand  to  any  orator  who  had  three  times 
advised  resolutions  contrary  to  the  existing  laws.2 

Athens  knewr  very  well  that  democracy  could  be 
sustained  only  by  respect  for  the  laws.  The  care 
of  preparing  the  changes  that  it  might  be  useful  to 
propose  belonged  especially  to  the  thesmothetæ.  Their 
propositions  were  presented  to  the  senate,  which  had 
the  right  to  reject,  but  not  to  convert  them  into  laws. 
In  case  of  approval  the  senate  convoked  the  assembly, 
and  presented  the  bill  of  the  thesmothetæ.  But  the 
people  could  decide  nothing  at  once;  they  put  off  the 
discussion  to  another  day.  Meanwhile  they  designated 
live  orators,  whose  special  mission  should  be  to  defend 
the  existing  laws,  and  to  point  out  the  inconveniences  of 
the  innovation  proposed.  On  the  day  fixed  the  people 
again  assembled  and  heard,  first,  the  orators  charged 
wdth  the  defence  of  the  old  laws,  and  afterwards  those 
who  supported  the  new.  When  speeches  had  been 
heard,  the  people  did  not  decide  yet.  They  contented 
themselves  wTith  naming  a  commission,  very  numerous, 
but  composed  exclusively  of  men  who  had  held  the 
office  of  judge.  This  commission  returned  to  the  ex- 

1  Pollux,  VIII.  94.  Philochorus,  Fragm .,  coll.  Didot,  p.  407. 

*  Athenæus,  X.  73.  Pollux,  VIII.  52.  See  G.  Perrot,  Hist 
du  droit  public  d'Athènes,  chap.  II. 


446 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


amination  of  the  affair,  heard  the  orators  anew,  dis¬ 
cussed,  and  deliberated.  If  the  commissioners  rejected 
the  proposed  law,  their  decision  was  without  appeal. 
If  they  approved  it,  the  people  were  again  assembled  ; 
and  this  third  time  they  voted,  and  by  their  votes  the 
bill  became  a  law.1 

Notwithstanding  so  much  prudence,  an  unjust  or  un¬ 
wise  proposition  might  still  be  adopted;  but  the  new 
law  forever  carried  the  name  of  its  author,  who  might 
afterwards  be  prosecuted  and  punished.  The  people, 
as  the  real  sovereign,  were  reputed  infallible,  but  every 
orator  always  remained  answerable  for  the  advice  he 
had  given.2 

Such  were  the  rules  which  the  democracy  obeyed. 
But  we  are  not  to  conclude  from  this  that  they  never 
made  mistakes.  Whatever  the  form  of  government, — 
monarchy,  aristocracy,  or  democracy,  —  there  are  days 
when  reason  governs,  and  others  when  passion  rules. 
No  constitution  ever  suppressed  the  weaknesses  and 
vices  of  human  nature.  The  more  minute  the  rules, 
the  more  difficult  and  full  of  peril  they  show  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  society  to  be.  Democracy  could  last  only  by 
force  of  prudence. 

We  are  astonished,  too,  at  the  amount  of  labor  w  hich 
this  democracy  required  of  men.  It  wras  a  very  labori¬ 
ous  government.  See  how  the  life  of  an  Athenian  is 
passed.  One  day  he  is  called  to  the  assembly  of  his 
deme,  and  has  to  deliberate  on  the  religious  and  politi¬ 
cal  interests  of  this  little  association.  Another  day 
he  must  go  to  the  assembly  of  his  tribe  ;  a  religious 

1  Æschines,  in  Ctesiph .,  38.  Demosthenes,  in  Tivnocr.  /  in 
Leptin.  Andoeides,  I.  83. 

*  Thucydides,  III.  43.  Demosthenes,  in  Timocratem . 


s 


CHAP.  XI.  RULES  OF  DEMOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.  447 

festival  is  to  be  arranged,  or  expenses  are  to  be  ex¬ 
amined,  or  decrees  passed,  or  chiefs  and  judges  named. 
Three  times  a  month,  regularly,  he  takes  part  in  the 
general  assembly  of  the  people;  and  he  is  not  permit¬ 
ted  to  be  absent.  The  session  is  long.  He  does  not 
go  simply  to  vote;  having  arrived  in  the  morning,  he 
must  remain  till  a  late  hour,  and  listen  to  the  orators. 
He  cannot  vote  unless  he  has  been  present  fiom  the 
opening  of  the  session,  and  has  heard  all  the  speeches. 
For  him  this  vote  is  one  of  the  most  serious  affairs.  At 
one  time  political  or  military  chiefs  are  to  be  elected, 
—  that  is  to  say,  those  to  whom  his  interests  and  his 
life  are  to  be  confided  for  a  year;  at  another  a  tax  is 
to  be  imposed,  or  a  law  to  be  changed.  Again,  he  has 
to  vote  on  the  question  of  war,  knowing  well  that,  in 
ease  of  war,  he  must  give  his  own  blood  or  that  of  a 
son.  Individual  interests  are  inseparably  united  with 
those  of  the  state.  A  man  cannot  be  indifferent  or  in¬ 
considerate.  If  he  is  mistaken,  he  knows  that  he  shall 
soon  suffer  for  it,  and  that  in  each  vote  he  pledges  his 
fortune  and  his  life.  The  day  when  the  disastrous  Si¬ 
cilian  expedition  was  decided  upon,  there  was  no  citi¬ 
zen  who  did  not  know  that  one  of  his  own  family  must 
make  a  part  of  it,  and  who  was  not  required  to  give  his 
whole  attention  to  weighing  the  advantages  of  such  an 
expedition  against  the  dangers  it  presented.  It  was  of 
the  greatest  importance  that  one  should  see  the  subject 
in  a  clear  light;  for  a  check  received  by  his  country 
was  for  every  citizen  a  diminution  of  his  personal  dig¬ 
nity,  of  his  security,  and  of  his  wealth. 

The  duty  of  a  citizen  was  not  limited  to  voting. 
When  his  turn  came,  he  was  required  to  act  as  a  magis¬ 
trate  in  his  deme  or  in  his  tribe.  Every  third  year* 

1  There  were  5,000  heliasts  out  of  14,000  citizens  ;  but  we  may 


448 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


he  was  a  heliast,  and  passed  all  that  year  in  the  courts 
of  justice,  occupied  in  hearing  cases  and  applying  the 
law.  There  was  hardly  a  citizen  who  was  not  called 
upon  twice  in  his  life  to  be  a  senator.  Then  for  a  year 
he  sat  every  day  from  morning  till  evening,  receiving 
the  depositions  of  magistrates,  demanding  their  ac¬ 
counts,  replying  to  foreign  ambassadors,  drawing  up 
instructions  for  Athenian  ambassadors,  examining  into 
al)  affairs  that  were  to  be  submitted  to  the  people,  and 
preparing  all  the  laws.  Finally,  he  might  be  a  magis¬ 
trate  of  the  city,  an  arch  on,  a  strategus,  or  an  nstynome, 
if  the  lot  or  suffrage  designated  him.  It  was,  we  see, 
a  heavy  charge  to  be  a  citizen  of  a  democratic  state. 
There  was  enough  to  occupy  almost  one’s  whole  ex¬ 
istence,  and  there  remained  very  little  time  for  per¬ 
sonal  affairs  and  domestic  life.  Therefore  Aristotle 
says,  very  justly,  that  the  man  who  had  to  labor  in 
order  to  live  could  not  be  a  citizen.  Such  were  the 
requirements  of  a  democracy.  The  citizen,  like  the 
public  functionary  of  our  day,  was  required  to  devote 
himself  entirely  to  the  state.  He  gave  it  his  blood  in 
war  and  his  time  during  peace.  He  was  not  free  to 
lay  aside  public  affairs  in  order  to  give  more  attention 
to  bis  own  ;  it  was  rather  his  own  that  he  was  required 
to  neglect  in  order  to  labor  for  the  profit  of  the  city. 
Men  passed  their  lives  in  governing  themselves.  De¬ 
mocracy  could  not  last  except  through  the  incessant 
labor  of  all  citizens.  Let  their  zeal  diminish  ever  so 
little,  and  it  perished  or  became  corrupt. 

* 

deduct  from  this  second  number  3,000  or  4,000,  who  might  hav« 
been  thrown  out  by  the  doxipuoia. 


JHAP.  XII.  RICH  AND  POOR - THE  TYRANTS. 


44a 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Rich  and  Poor.  Democracy  Perishes.  The  Popular 

Tyrants. 

When  a  series  of  revolutions  had  produced  an 
equality  among  men,  and  there  was  no  longer  occasion 
to  fight  for  principles  and  rights,  men  began  to  make 
war  for  interests.  This  new  period  in  the  history  of 
cities  did  not  commence  for  all  at  the  same  time.  In 
some  it  closely  followed  the  establishment  of  democ¬ 
racy;  in  others  it  appeared  only  after  several  genera¬ 
tions  that  had  known  how  to  govern  themselves  with 
moderation.  But  all  the  cities  sooner  or  later  passed 
through  these  deplorable  struggles. 

As  men  departed  from  the  ancient  system,  a  poor 
class  began  to  grow  up.  Before,  when  every  man  be¬ 
longed  to  a  gens,  and  had  his  master,  extreme  poverty 
was  almost  unknown.  A  man  was  supported  by  his 
chief;  the  one  to  whom  he  owed  obedience  was  bound 
in  turn  to  provide  for  his  wants.  But  the  revolutions 
which  had  dissolved  the  yêioç  had  also  changed  the 
conditions  of  human  life.  The  day  when  man  was 
freed  from  the  bonds  of  clientship,  he  saw  the  necessi¬ 
ties  and  the  difficulties  of  existence  stand  out  before 
him.  Life  had  become  more  independent,  but  it  was 
also  more  laborious  and  subject  to  more  accidents. 
Thenceforth  each  one  had  the  care  of  his  own  well¬ 
being,  his  enjoyments,  and  his  task.  One  became  rich 
by  his  activity  or  his  good  fortune,  while  another  re¬ 
mained  poor.  Inequality  of  wealth  is  inevitable  in 
every  society  which  does  not  wish  to  remain  in  th« 
patriarchal  state  or  in  that  of  the  tribe. 

29 


450 


TUE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


The  democracy  did  not  suppress  poverty,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  rendered  it  more  perceptible.  Equality 
of  political  rights  made  the  inequality  of  conditions  ap¬ 
pear  still  more  plainly. 

As  there  was  no  authority  that  was  above  rich  and 
poor  at  the  same  time,  and  could  constrain  them  to 
keep  the  peace,  it  could  have  been  wished  that  eco¬ 
nomic  principles  and  the  conditions  of  labor  had  been 
such  as  to  compel  the  two  classes  to  live  on  good 
terms.  If,  for  example,  the  one  had  stood  in  need  of 
the  other, —  if  the  wealthy  could  not  have  enriched 
themselves  except  by  calling  upon  the  poor  for  their 
.abor,  and  the  poor  could  have  found  the  means  of  liv¬ 
ing  by  selling  their  labor  to  the  rich,  —  then  the  ine¬ 
quality  of  fortunes  would  have  stimulated  the  activity 
and  the  intelligence  of  man,  and  would  not  have  be¬ 
gotten  corruption  and  civil  war. 

But  many  cities  were  absolutely  without  manufac¬ 
tures  and  commerce;  they  had,  therefore,  no  means  of 
augmenting  the  amount  of  public  wealth  in  order  to 
give  a  part  of  it  to  the  poor  without  despoiling  any 
one.  Where  there  was  commerce,  nearly  all  its  bene¬ 
fits  were  for  the  rich  in  consequence  of  the  high  rate 
of  interest.  If  there  were  manufactures,  the  workmen 
were  slaves.  We  know  that  the  rich  men  of  Athens, 
and  of  Rome,  had  in  their  houses  weavers,  carvers,  and 
armorers,  all  slaves.  Even  the  liberal  professions  were 
almost  closed  to  the  citizen.  The  physician  was  often 
a  slave,  who  cured  diseases  for  the  benefit  of  his  mas¬ 
ter;  bank-clerks,  many  architects,  ship-builders,  and 
the  lower  state  officials  were  slaves.  Slavery  was  a 
scourge  from  which  free  society  itself  suffered.  The 
citizen  found  few  employments,  little  to  do;  the  want 
of  occupation  soon  rendered  him  indolent.  As  he  saw 


il  AP,  XII.  RICH  AND  POOR - THE  TYRANTS. 


451 


only  slaves  at  work,  he  despised  labor.  Thus  eco¬ 
nomic  habits,  moral  dispositions,  prejudices,  all  com¬ 
bined  to  prevent  the  poor  man  escaping  from  his 
miser}-  and  living  honestly.  Wealth  and  poverty  were 
not  constituted  in  a  way  to  live  together  in  peace. 

The  poor  man  had  equality  of  rights  ;  but  assuredly 
his  daily  sufferings  led  him  to  think  equality  of  for¬ 
tunes  far  preferable.  Nor  was  he  long  in  perceiving 
that  the  equality  which  he  had  might  serve  him  to  ac¬ 
quire  that  which  he  had  not,  and  that,  master  of  the 
votes,  he  might  become  master  of  the  wealth  of  his 
city. 

He  began  by  undertaking  to  live  upon  his  right  of 
voting.  He  asked  to  be  paid  for  attending  the  assem¬ 
bly,  or  for  deciding  causes  in  the  courts.  If  the  city 
was  not  rich  enough  to  afford  such  an  expense,  the 
poor  man  had  other  resources.  He  sold  his  vote,  and, 
as  the  occasions  for  voting  were  frequent,  he  could  live. 
At  Rome  this  traffic  was  regular,  and  was  carried  on 
in  broad  dav  ;  at  Athens  it  was  better  concealed.  At 
Rome,  where  the  poor  man  did  not  act  as  a  judge,  he 
sold  himself  as  a  witness;  at  Athens,  as  a  judge.  All 
this  did  not  relieve  the  poor  man  from  his  misery,  and 
reduced  him  to  a  state  of  degradation. 

These  expedients  did  not  suffice,  and  the  poor  man 
used  more  energetic  means.  He  organized  regular 
warfare  against  wealth.  At  first  this  war  was  dis 
£uised  under  legal  forms;  the  rich  were  charged  with 
all  the  public  expenses,  loaded  with  taxes,  made  to 
build  triremes,  and  to  entertain  the  people  with  shows. 
Then  fines  were  multiplied,  and  property  confiscated 
for  the  slightest  fault.  No  one  can  tell  how  many 
men  were  condemned  to  exile  for  the  simple  reason 
diat  they  were  rich.  The  fortune  of  the  exile  went 


452 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


into  the  public  treasury,  whence  it  afterwards  flowed, 
under  the  form  of  the  triobolon,  to  be  distributed 
among  the  poor.  But  even  all  this  did  not  suffice;  foi 
the  number  of  poor  continued  to  increase.  The  poor 
then  began  to  use  their  right  of  suffrage  either  to  de¬ 
cree  an  abolition  of  debts,  or  a  grand  confiscation,  and 
a  general  subversion. 

In  earlier  times  they  had  respected  the  right  of  prop¬ 
erty,  because  it  was  founded  in  a  religious  belief.  So 
long  as  each  patrimony  was  attached  to  a  worship,  and 
was  reputed  inseparable  from  the  domestic  gods  of  a 
family,  no  one  had  thought  of  claiming  the  right  to  de¬ 
spoil  a  man  of  his  field  ;  but  at  the  time  to  which  the 
revolutions  have  conducted  us,  these  old  beliefs  are 
abandoned,  and  the  religion  of  property  has  disappeared. 
Wealth  is  no  longer  a  sacred  and  inviolable  domain. 
It  no  longer  appears  as  a  gift  of  the  gods,  but  as  a  gift 
of  chance.  A  desire  springs  up  to  lay  hold  of  it  by  de¬ 
spoiling  the  possessor,  and  this  desire,  which  formerly 
would  have  seemed  an  impiety,  begins  to  appear  l  ight. 
Men  no  longer  saw  the  superior  principle  that  conse¬ 
crates  the  right  of  property.  Each  felt  only  his  own 
wants,  and  measured  his  rights  by  them. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  city,  especially  among 
the  Greeks,  had  unlimited  power,  that  liberty  was  un¬ 
known,  and  that  individual  rights  were  nothing  when 
opposed  to  the  will  of  the  state.  It  followed  that  a 
majority  of  votes  might  decree  the  confiscation  of  the 
property  of  the  rich,  and  that  the  Greeks  saw  neither 
illegality  nor  injustice  in  this.  What  the  state  had 
declared  Was  right.  This  absence  of  individual  liberty 
was  for  Greece  a  cause  of  misfortunes  and  disorders, 
Rome,  which  had  a  little  more  respect  for  the  rights  cf 
man,  suffered  lesa. 


CHAI .  XII.  RICH  AND  POOR  —  THE  TYRANTS. 


453 


At  Megara,  as  Plutarch  relates,  after  an  insurrection, 
it  was  decreed  that  debts  should  be  abolished,  and  that 
the  creditors,  besides  the  loss  of  their  capital,  should  be 
held  to  reimburse  the  interest  already  paid.1 

“  At  Megara,  as  in  other  cities,”  says  Aristotle,2  “the 
popular  party,  having  got  the  power  into  their  hands, 
began  by  confiscating  the  property  of  a  few  rich  fami¬ 
lies.  But,  once  on  this  road,  it  was  impossible  to  stop. 
A  new  victim  was  necessary  every  day;  and,  finally, 
the  number  of  the  rich  who  were  despoiled  or  exiled 
became  so  great  that  they  formed  an  army.” 

In  412,  “  the  people  of  Samos  put  to  death  two  hun¬ 
dred  of  their  adversaries,  exiled  four  hundred  more,  and 
divided  up  the  lands  and  houses.”3 

At  Syracuse,  hardly  were  the  people  freed  from  the 
tyranny  of  Dionysius,  when  they  decreed  the  partition 
of  the  lands.4 

In  this  period  of  Greek  history,  whenever  we  see  a 
civil  war,  the  rich  are  on  one  side,  and  the  poor  are  on 
the  other.  The  poor  are  trying  to  gain  possession  of 
the  wealth,  and  the  rich  are  trying  to  retain  or  to 
recover  it.  “  In  every  civil  war,”  says  a  Greek  histo¬ 
rian,  “  the  great  object  is  to  change  fortunes.”  3  Every 
demagogue  acted  like  that  Molpagoras  of  Cios,  who 
delivered  to  the  multitude  those  who  possessed  money, 
massacred  some,  exiled  others,  and  distributed  their 
property  among  the  poor.  At  Messene,  as  soon  as  the 
popular  party  gained  the  upper  hand,  they  exiled  the 

rich,  and  distributed  their  lands. 

The  upper  classes  among  the  ancients  never  had  in* 

1  Plutarch,  Greek  Quest .,  18. 

*  Aristotle,  Politics,  VIII.  4  (V.  4). 

Thucydides,  VII.  21.  4  Plutarch,  Dion.,  87,  48- 

Polybius,  XV.  21.  *  Polybius,  VII.  10. 


464 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


telligence  or  ability  enough  to  direct  the  poor  towards 
labor,  and  thus  helj)  them  to  escape  honorably  from 
their  misery  and  corruption.  A  few  benevolent  men 
attempted  it,  but  they  did  not  succeed.  The  res  alt 
was,  that  the  cities  always  floated  between  two  revolu¬ 
tions,  one  to  despoil  the  rich,  the  other  to  enable  them 
to  recover  their  fortunes.  This  lasted  from  the  Pelo¬ 
ponnesian  war  to  the  conquest  of  Greece  by  the 
Romans. 

In  every  city  the  rich  and  the  poor  were  two  ene¬ 
mies  living  by  the  side  of  each  other,  the  one  coveting 
wealth,  and  the  other  seeing  their  wealth  coveted.  ISTo 
relation,  no  service,  no  labor  united  them.  The  poor 
could  acquire  wealth  only  by  despoiling  the  rich.  The 
rich  could  defend  their  property  only  by  extreme  skill 
or  by  force.  They  regarded  each  other  with  the  eyes 
of  hate.  There  was  a  double  conspiracy  in  every  city; 
the  poor  conspired  from  cupidity,  the  rich  from  fear. 
Aristotle  says  the  rich  took  the  following  oath  among 
themselves:  “I  swear  always  to  remain  the  enemy 
of  the  people,  and  to  do  them  all  the  injury  in  my 
power.”  1 

It  is  impossible  to  say  which  of  the  two  parties  com¬ 
mitted  the  most  cruelties  and  crimes.  Hatred  effaced 
in  their  hearts  every  sentiment  of  humanity.  “  There 
was  at  Miletus  a  war  between  the  rich  and  the  poor. 
At  first  the  latter  were  successful,  and  drove  the  rich 
from  the  city;  but  afterwards,  regretting  that  they  had 
not  been  able  to  slaughter  them,  they  took  their  chil¬ 
dren,  collected  them  into  some  threshing-floors,  and  had 
them  trodden  to  death  under  the  feet  of  oxen.  The 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  7,  19  (V.  7).  Plutarch,  Lysan- 
ier,  19. 


CHAV.  XII.  RICH  AND  POOR  —  THE  TYRANTS. 


455 


rich  afterwards  returned  to  the  city,  and  became  mas¬ 
ters  of  it.  They  took,  in  their  turn,  the  children  of  oic 
poor,  covered  them  with  pitch,  and  burnt  them  alive.1 

What,  then,  became  of  the  democracy?  They  weie 
not  precisely  responsible  for  these  excesses  and  crimes , 
Btill  they  were  the  first  to  be  affected  by  them.  There 
were  no  longer  any  governing  rules;  now,  the  de¬ 
mocracy  could  live  only  under  the  strictest  and  best 
observed  rules.  We  no  longer  see  any  government, 
but  merely  factions  in  power.  The  magistrate  no  longer 
exercised  his  authority  for  the  benefit  of  peace  and 
law,  but  for  the  interests  and  greed  of  a  party.  A 
command  no  longer  had  a  legitimate  title  or  a  sacred 
character;  there  was  no  longer  anything  voluntary  in 
obedience;  always  forced,  it  was  always  waning  for  an 
opportunity  to  take  its  revenge.  The  city  was  now, 
as  Plato  said,  only  an  assemblage  of  men,  where  one 

1  Heracleides  of  Pontus,  in  Athenæus,  XII.  26.  It  is  quite  the 
fashion  to  accuse  the  Athenian  democracy  of  having  set  Greece 
the  example  in  these  excesses  and  disorders.  Athens  was,  on 
the  contrary,  the  only  Greek  city,  known  to  us,  that  did  not  see 
this  atrocious  war  between  rich  and  poor  within  its  walls.  This 
intelligent  and  wise  people  saw,  from  the  day  when  this  series 
of  revolutions  commenced,  that  they  were  moving  towards  a 
goal  where  labor  alone  could  save  society.  They  therefore  en¬ 
couraged  it  and  rendered  it  honorable.  Solon  directed  that  all 
men  who  had  not  an  occupation  should  be  deprived  of  political 
rights.  Pericles  desired  that  no  slave  should  labor  in  the 
construction  of  the  great  monuments  which  he  raised,  and  re¬ 
served  all  this  labor  for  free  men.  Moreover,  property  was  so 
divided  up,  that  a  census,  taken  at  the  end  of  the  fifth  century, 
shows  little  Attica  to  have  contained  more  than  ten  thousand 
proprietors.  Besides,  Athens,  living  under  a  somewhat  better 
economical  régime  than  the  other  cities  enjoyed,  was  less  vio¬ 
lently  agitated  than  the  «est  of  Greece  ;  the  quarrels  between  rich 
and  pool  were  calmer,  and  did  not  end  in  the  same  disorders. 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


455 

party  war  master  and  the  other  enslaved.  The  govern- 
ment  wa<=  called  aristocratic  when  the  rich  were  in 
power,  democratic  when  the  poor  ruled.  In  reality, 
true  democracy  no  longer  existed. 

From  the  day  when  it  was  mastered  by  material  in¬ 
terests,  it  was  changed  and  corrupted.  Democracy,  with 
the  rich  in  power,  had  become  a  violent  oligarchy;  the 
democracy  of  the  poor  had  become  a  tyranny.  From 
the  fifth  to  the  second  century  before  our  era,  we  see 
in  all  the  cities  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  Rome  still  ex¬ 
cepted,  that  the  republican  forms  are  imperilled,  and 
that  they  have  become  odious  to  one  party.  Now,  we 
can  clearly  see  who  wish  to  destroy  it,  and  who  desire 
its  preservation.  The  rich,  more  enlightened  and  more 
haughty,  remain  faithful  to  republican  government, 
while  the  poor,  for  whom  political  rights  have  less  val¬ 
ue,  are  ready  to  adopt  a  tyrant  as  their  chief.  When 
this  poor  class,  after  several  civil  wars,  saw  that  victories 
gained  them  nothing,  that  the  opposite  party  always 
returned  to  power,  and  that,  after  many  interchanges 
of  confiscations  and  restitutions,  the  struggle  always 
recommenced,  they  dreamed  of  establishing  a  monarch¬ 
ical  government  which  should  conform  to  their  inter¬ 
ests,  and  which,  by  forever  suppressing  the  opposite 
party,  should  assure  them,  for  the  future,  the  fruits  of 
their  victory.  And  so  they  set  up  tyrants.  From 
that  moment  the  parties  changed  names;  they  were 
no  longer  aristocracy  or  democracy  ;  they  fought  for 
liberty  or  for  tyranny.  Under  these  two  names  wealth 
and  poverty  were  p'ill  at  war.  Liberty  signified  the 
government  where  the  rich  had  the  rule,  and  defended 
their  fortunes;  tyranny  indicated  exactly  the  contrary. 

It  is  a  general  fact,  and  almost  without  exception  in 
the  history  of  Greece  and  of  Italy,  that  the  tyrants 


CHAP.  XII.  RICH  AND  POOR — THE  TYRANTS.  457 


sprang  from  the  popular  party,  and  had  the  aristocracy 
as  enemies.  “  The  mission  of  the  tyrant,”  says  Aris¬ 
totle,  “is  to  protect  the  people  against  the  rich  ;  he  has 
always  commenced  by  being  a  demagogue,  and  it  is  the 
essence  of  tyranny  to  oppose  the  aristocracy.”  “The 
means  of  arriving  at  a  tyranny,”  he  also  says,  “is  to 
gain  the  confidence  of  the  multitude  ;  and  one  doee 
this  by  declaring  himself  the  enemy  of  the  rich.  This 
was  the  course  of  Peisistratus  at  Athens,  of  Theagenes 
at  Megara,  and  of  Dionysius  at  Syracuse.”  1 

The  tyrant  always  made  war  upon  the  lich.  At 
Megara,  Theagenes  surprises  the  herds  of  tne  rich  in 
the  country  and  slaughters  them.  At  Uumæ,  Aristo- 
demus  abolishes  debts,  and  takes  the  lands  of  the  rich 
t r  give  them  to  the  poor.  This  was  the  course  of 
Nicocles  at  Sicyon,  and  of  Aristomachus  at  Argos.  All 
these  tyrants  writers  represent  as  very  cruel.  It  is 
uot  probable  that  they  were  all  so  by  nature;  but  they 
were  urged  by  the  pressing  necessity,  in  which  they 
found  themselves,  of  giving  lands  or  money  to  the  poor. 
They  could  maintain  their  power  only  while  they  sat¬ 
isfied  the  cravings  of  the  multitude,  and  administered 
to  their  passions. 

The  tyrant  of  the  Greek  cities  was  a  personage  of 
whom  nothing  in  our  day  can  give  us  an  idea.  He  was 
a  man  who  lived  in  the  midst  of  his  subjects,  without 
intermediate  officers  and  without  ministers,  and  who 
dealt  with  them  directly.  He  was  not  in  that  lofty  and 
independent  position  which  the  sovereign  of  a  great 
state  occupies.  He  had  all  the  little  passions  of  the 
private  man  ;  he  was  not  insensible  to  the  profits  of 
u  confiscation  ;  he  was  accessible  to  anger  and  to  the 


1  Aristotle,  Politics,  V.  8  ;  VIII.  4,  5  ;  V.  A 


458 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


desire  of  personal  revenge;  he  was  disturbed  by  fear; 
he  knew  that  he  had  enemies  all  about  him,  and  that 
public  opinion  approved  assassination,  when  it  was  a 
tyrant  that  was  struck  down.  We  can  imagine  what 
the  government  of  such  a  man  must  have  been.  With 
two  or  three  honorable  exceptions,  the  tyrants  who 
were  set  up  in  all  the  Greek  cities  in  the  fourth  and 
third  centuries  reigned  only  by  flattering  all  that  was 
worst  in  the  multitude,  and  by  destroying  all  that 
was  superior  in  birth,  wealth,  or  merit.  Their  power 
was  unlimited.  The  Greeks  could  see  how  easily  a 
republican  government,  when  it  did  not  profess  a  great 
respect  for  individual  rights,  was  changed  into  a  des¬ 
potism.  The  ancients  had  conferred  such  powers  upon 
the  state  that,  the  day  when  a  tyrant  took  this  om¬ 
nipotence  in  hand,  men  no  longer  had  any  security 
against  him,  and  he  was  legally  the  master  of  their 
lives  and  their  fortunes. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Revolutions  of  Sparta. 

We  are  not  to  believe  that  Sparta  remained  ten  cen¬ 
turies  without  seeing  a  revolution.  Thucydides  tells  us, 
on  the  contrary,  “  that  it  was  torn  by  dissensions  more 
than  any  other  Greek  city.”  1  The  history  of  these  in¬ 
ternal  dissensions,  it  is  true,  is  little  known  to  us;  but 
this  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  government  of  Sparta 
made  a  rule  and  a  custom  of  surrounding  itself  with 
the  most  profound  mystery.2  The  greater  part  of  the 


1  Thucydides,  I.  18. 


2  Thucydides,  V.  68. 


CHAP.  XIII. 


REVOLUTIONS  SPARTA. 


459 


struggles  that  took  place  there  have  been  concealed 
and  forgotten  ;  but  we  know  enough  of  them,  at  least, 
to  say,  that  if  the  history  of  Sparta  differs  materially 
from  that  of  other  cities,  it  has  none  the  less  passed 
through  the  same  series  of  revolutions. 

The  Dorians  were  already  united  into  a  people  when 
they  overran  Peloponnesus.  What  had  caused  them 
to  leave  their  country?  Was  it  the  invasion  of  a  for¬ 
eign  nation?  or  was  it  an  internal  revolution?  We 
do  not  know.  But  it  appears  certain  that,  at  this  stage 
in  the  life  of  the  Dorians,  the  old  rule  of  the  gens  had 
already  disappeared.  We  no  longer  distinguish  among 
them  this  ancient  organization  of  the  family;  we  no 
longer  find  traces  of  the  patriarchal  government,  or 
vestiges  of  the  religious  nobility,  or  of  hereditary  client- 
ship;  we  see  only  warriors,  all  equal,  under  a  king.  It 
is  probable,  therefore,  that  a  first  social  revolution  had 
already  taken  place,  either  in  Doris  or  on  the  road 
which  conducted  this  people  to  Sparta.  '  If  we  com¬ 
pare  Dorian  society  of  the  ninth  century  with  Ionian 
society  of  the  same  epoch,  we  perceive  that  the  former 
was  much  farther  advanced  than  the  other  in  the  series 
of  changes.  The  Ionian  race  entered  later  upon  the 
revolutionary  road,  but  passed  over  it  quicker. 

Though  the  Dorians,  on  their  arrival  at  Sparta,  no 
longer  had  the  government  of  the  gens,  they  had  not 
been  able  so  completely  to  free  themselves  from  it  as  not 
to  retain  some  of  its  institutions,  —  as,  for  example,  the 
right  of  primogeniture  and  the  inalienability  of  the  pat¬ 
rimony.  These  institutions  could  not  fail  to  establish 
an  aristocracy  in  Spartan  society. 

All  the  traditions  show  us  that,  at  the  time  when 
Lycurgus  appeared,  there  were  two  classes  among  the 
Spartans,  and  that  they  were  hostile  to  each  other. 


4G0 


THE  HE  VOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


Royalty  had  a  natural  tendency  to  take  part  with  the 
lower  class.  Lycurgus,  who  was  not  king,  became  the 
chief  of  the  aristocracy,  and  at  the  same  blow  weak¬ 
ened  royalty,  and  brought  the  people  under  the  yoke. 

The  declamations  of  a  few  of  the  ancients,  and  of 
many  of  the  moderns,  on  the  wisdom  of  Spartan  in¬ 
stitutions,  on  the  unchangeable  good  fortune  which  the 
Spartans  enjoyed,  on  their  equality,  and  on  their  living 
in  common,  ought  not  to  blind  us.  Of  all  the  cities 
that  ever  were  upon  the  earth,  Sparta  is  perhaps  the 
one  where  the  aristocracy  reigned  the  most  oppressive¬ 
ly,  and  where  equality  was  the  least  known.  It  is  use¬ 
less  to  talk  of  the  division  of  the  land.  If  that  division 
ever  took  place,  it  is  at  least  quite  certain  that  it  was 
not  kept  up;  for,  in  Aristotle’s  time,  “some  possessed 
immense  domains;  others  had  nothing,  or  almost  noth 
ing.  One  could  reckon  hardly  a  thousand  proprietors 
in  all  Laconia.”  1 

If  we  leave  out  the  Helots  and  the  Laconians,  and 
examine  only  Spartan  society,  we  shall  find  a  hierarchy 
of  classes  superposed  one  above  the  other.  First,  there 
are  the  Neodamodes,  who  appear  to  be  former  slaves 
freed;2  then  come  the  Epeunactæ,  who  had  been  ad¬ 
mitted  to  fill  up  the  gaps  made  by  war  among  the 
Spartans;3  in  a  rank  a  little  above  figured  the  Motha- 
ces,  who,  very  similar  to  domestic  clients,  lived  with 
their  masters,  composed  their  cortège ,  shared  their  oc¬ 
cupations,  their  labors,  and  their  festivals,  and  fought 
by  their  side;4  then  came  the  class  of  bastards,  who, 
though  descended  from  true  Spartans,  were  separated 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  II.  6,  10  and  11. 

2  Myron  of  Priene,  in  Athenæus.  VI. 

*  Theopompus,  in  Athenæus,  VI. 

4  Athenæus,  VI.  102.  Plutarch,  Cleomenes,&.  Ælian,  XII  4P 


CHAP.  XIII. 


REVOLUTIONS  OP  SPARTA. 


461 


from  them  by  religion  and  law.1  There  was  still  an¬ 
other  class,  called  the  inferiors,  inQ/uEloveg*  ^ho  were 
probably  the  younger,  disinherited  so  <s  of  families. 
Finally,  above  all  these  was  raised  the  aristocratic 
class,  composed  of  the  men  called  the  Equals  —  o uoicn. 
These  men  were  indeed  equal  among  themselves,  but 
were  much  superior  to  all  the  rest.  The  number  of 
this  class  is  not  known  ;  we  know  only  that  it  was  very 
small.  Oi\e  day  one  of  their  enemies  counted  them  in 
t.  e  public  square,  and  found  some  sixty  of  them  in  the 
midst  of  a  multitude  of  four  thousand  people.3  These 
Equals  alone  had  a  part  in  the  government  of  the  city 
“To  be  outside  this  class,”  says  Xenophon,  “is  to  be 
outside  the  body  politic.” 4  Demosthenes  says  that  a 
man  who  entered  the  class  of  Equals  became  by  that 
alone  “one  of  the  masters  of  the  government.” 5  “They 
were  called  Equals,”  he  further  says,  “because  equality 
mght  to  reign  between  the  members  of  an  oligarchy.” 

On  the  composition  of  this  body  we  have  no  precise 
information.  It  was  recruited,  as  it  should  seem,  by 
election  ;  but  the  right  of  electing  belonged  to  the  body 
itself,  and  not  to  the  people.  To  be  admitted  to  it 
was  what  they  called,  in  the  official  language  of  Sparta, 
the  reward  of  virtue.  We  do  not  know  how  much 
wealth,  rank,  merit,  and  age  were  required  to  compose 
this  virtue.  It  is  evident  that  birth  was  not  sufficient, 
since  there  was  an  election.  We  may  suppose  that  it 
was  rather  wealth  which  determined  the  choice  in  a  city 

'  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  6  (V.  6).  Xenophon,  Hellenico 
V.  3,  9. 

8  Xenophon,  Ilellenica,  III.  3,  6, 

3  Xenophon,  Hellenic ,  III.  3,  5. 

4  Xenophon,  Giv.  <r*l  \  *ced.,  1). 

Demosthenes  iv  Ley  *i.,  10/. 


462 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV 


“  which  had  the  love  of  money  in  the  highest  degree 
and  where  everything  was  permitted  to  wealth.”  1 

However  this  may  be,  these  Equals  alone  had  the 
rights  of  citizens;  they  alone  composed  the  assembly; 
they  alone  formed  what  was  called  at  Sparta  the  people. 
From  this  class  came,  by  election,  the  senators,  to 
whom  the  constitution  gave  very  great  authority;  for 
Demosthenes  says  that  the  day  a  man  entered  the  sen¬ 
ate  he  became  a  despot  towards  the  multitude.2  This 
senate,  of  which  the  kings  were  simple  members,  gov¬ 
erned  the  state  according  to  the  habitual  custom 
of  aristocratic  bodies;  annual  magistrates,  whose  elec¬ 
tion  belonged  indirectly  to  it,  exercised  in  its  name 
an  absolute  authority.  Thus  Sparta  had  a  republican 
government;  it  even  had  all  the  externals  of  a  democ- 
racy  —  king-priests,  annual  magistrates,  a  deliberative 
senate,  and  an  assembly  of  the  people.  But  this  people 
was  an  association  of  some  two  or  three  hundred  men. 

Such  was,  after  Lycurgus,  and  especially  after  the  es¬ 
tablishment  of  the  ephors,  the  government  of  Sparta, 
An  aristocracy,  composed  of  a  few  rich  men,  placed  an 
iron  yoke  upon  the  Helots,  upon  the  Laconians,  and 
even  upon  the  greater  number  of  the  Spartans.  By  its 
energy,  ability,  unscrupulousness,  and  disregard  of  all 
moral  laws,  it  succeeded  in  holding  its  power  during 
five  centuries  ;  but  it  stirred  up  cruel  hatreds,  and  had 
to  suppress  a  great  number  of  insurrections. 

We  have  not  spoken  of  the  plots  of  the  Helots.  All 
those  of  the  Spartans  are  not  known.  The  government 
was  too  wise  not  to  seek  to  suppress  even  the  recollec- 

A  (fiko/çt]^aTia  2nÛQTav  tXot  ;  it  was  already  a  proverb  in 
Greece  in  Aristotle's  time.  Zenobius,  II.  24.  Aristotle,  Pol. , 
VIII.  6,  7  (V.  6). 

Demosthenes,  in  LepUn.,  107.  Xenophon,  Gov.  of  Paced . ,  10. 


CHAP.  XIII. 


REVOLUTIONS  OF  SPARTA. 


4G8 


tion  of  them.  Still  there  are  a  few  which  history  has 
not  been  able  to  overlook.  We  know  that  the  colo¬ 
nists  who  founded  Tarentum  were  Spartans  who  bad 
attempted  to  overthrow  the  government.  An  indiscre¬ 
tion  of  the  poet  Tyrtæus  revealed  to  all  Greece  that, 
during  the  Messenian  wars,  a  party  had  conspired  to 
obtain  a  division  of  the  lands. 

What  saved  Sparta  was  the  extreme  division  which 
existed  in  the  lower  orders.  The  Helots  did  not  agree 
with  the  Laconians;  and  the  Mcthaces  despised  the 
Neodamodes.  No  coalition  w*as  possible;  and  the 
aristocracy  —  thanks  to  its  military  education  and  the 
close  union  of  its  members  !  —  wras  always  strong 
enough  to  make  head  against  any  one  class  of  its  ene¬ 
mies. 

The  kings  attempted  what  no  class  could  realize. 
All  those  among  them  who  aspired  to  escape  from  the 
state  of  inferiority  in  which  the  aristocracy  held  them 
sought  support  among  the  lower  classes.  During  the 
Persian  war  Pausanias  formed  the  project  of  elevating 
royalty  and  the  lower  orders  at  the  same  time  by  over¬ 
throwing  the  oligarchy.  The  Spartans  put  him  to 
death,  accusing  him  of  having  conspired  with  the  king 
of  Persia;  his  real  crime  was,  rather,  entertaining  the 
thought  of  freeing  the  Helots.1  We  can  see  in  history 
how  numerous  were  the  kings  wrho  were  exiled  by  the 
ephors.  The  cause  of  these  condemnations  is  easily 
guessed;  and  Aristotle  says,  “The  kings  of  Sparta,  in 
order  to  make  head  against  the  ephors  and  the  senate, 
became  demagogues.”  2 

In  B.  C.  a  conspiracy  came  near  overthrowing 

1  Aristotle,  Politics ,  VIII.  1  (V.  1).  Thucydides,  I.  13,  » 

%  Aristotle,  Politics ,  II.  6,  14. 


464 


THB  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOR  IV 


this  oligarchic  government.  A  certain  Cinadon,  who 
did  not  belong  to  the  class  of  Equals,  was  the  chief 
of  the  conspirators.  He  would  bring  one  whom  he 
wished  to  join  in  this  plot  to  the  public  square,  and 
make  him  count  the  citizens;  by  including  the  ephors 
and  the  senators,  they  would  reach  the  number  of 
about  seventy.  Cinadon  would  then  say  to  him,  “Those 
men  are  our  enemies;  all  the  others,  on  the  contrary, 
who  fill  the  square  to  the  number  of  more  than  four 
thousand,  are  our  allies.”  He  would  add,  “When  you 
meet  a  Spartan  in  the  country,  see  in  him  an  enemy 
and  a  master;  all  other  men  are  friends.”  Helots,  La¬ 
conians,  Neodamodes,  i'noyeloveg^  all  were  united  this 
time,  and  were  the  accomplices  of  Cinadon.  “For  ali,” 
says  the  historian,  “had  such  a  hatred  for  their  masters 
that  there  was  not  a  single  one  among  them  who  did 
not  declare  that  it  would  be  agreeable  to  him  to  eat 
them  raw.”  But  the  government  of  Sparta  was  ad¬ 
mirably  served  ;  no  secret  could  be  kept  from  it.  The 
ephors  pretended  that  the  entrails  of  the  victims  had 
revealed  the  plot  to  them.  No  time  was  left  for  the 
conspirators  to  act  ;  they  were  seized  and  secretly  put 
to  death.  The  oligarchy  was  once  more  saved.1 

Favored  by  this  government,  the  inequality  contin¬ 
ued  to  increase.  The  Peloponnesian  war  and  the  ex¬ 
pedition  into  Asia  had  caused  money  to  flow  to  Sparta; 
but  it  had  been  distributed  in  a  very  unequal  manner, 
and  had  enriched  those  only  who  were  already  rich. 
At  the  same  time  small  properties  disappeared.  The 
number  of  proprietors,  who  in  Aristotle’s  time  amounv 
ed  to  a  thousand,  was  reduced  to  a  hundred  a  century 
after  him.3  The  entire  soil  was  in  a  few  hands  at  a 

1  Xenophon,  IJellenica ,  III.  8.  *  Plutarch,  Agis,  A 


CHAP,  xin 


REVOLUTIONS  OP  SPARTA. 


465 


time  when  there  was  neither  manufacture  nor  com- 
merce  to  furnish  occupation  for  the  poor,  and  when  the 
rich  employed  slaves  in  cultivating  their  immense  do¬ 
mains. 

On  the  one  hand  were  a  few  men  who  had  every¬ 
thing,  on  the  other  a  very  great  number  who  had  abso¬ 
lutely  nothing.  In  the  life  of  Agis,  and  in  that  of  Cle- 
omenes,  Plutarch  presents  us  with  a  picture  of  Spartan 
society.  We  there  see  an  unbridled  love  of  wealth; 
everything  is  made  secondary  to  this.  Among  a  few 
there  are  luxury,  effeminacy,  and  the  desire  endlessly  to 
augment  their  fortunes.  Beyond  these  there  is  a  mis¬ 
erable  crowd,  indigent,  without  political  rights,  of  no 
weight  in  the  city,  envious,  full  of  hatred,  and  con 
demned  by  their  condition  to  desire  a  revolution. 

When  the  oligarchy  had  thus  pushed  affairs  to  the 
last  possible  limits,  revolution  was  inevitable,  and  the 
democracy,  so  long  arrested  and  repressed,  finally  broke 
down  the  barriers.  We  can  also  easily  believe  that, 
after  ages  of  compression,  the  democracy  would  not 
stop  with  political  changes,  but  would  arrive  with  the 
first  bound  at  social  reforms. 

The  small  number  of  Spartans  by  birth  (there  were, 
including  all  the  different  classes,  no  more  than  seven 
hundred)  and  the  debasement  of  character,  a  result  of 
long  oppression,  explain  why  the  signal  for  changes 
did  not  come  from  the  lower  classes.  It  came  from  a 
king.  Agis  undertook  to  accomplish  this  inevitable 
revolution  by  legal  means,  which  increased  for  him  the 
difficulties  of  the  enterprise.  He  presented  to  the  sen- 

—  that  is  to  say,  to  the  rich  men  themselves  —  two 
bills  for  the  abolition  of  debts  and  the  partition  of  the 
lands.  We  cannot  be  too  much  surprised  that  the  sen¬ 
ate  did  not  reject  these  propositions.  Agis  had  perhaps 
30 


466 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


ROOK  IV. 


taken  his  measures  to  have  them  accepted.  But  the 
laws,  once  voted,  remained  to  be  put  in  execution  ;  and 
these  reforms  are  always  so  difficult  to  carry  through 
that  the  boldest  fail.  Agis,  stopped  short  by  the  oppo¬ 
sition  of  the  ephors,  was  constrained  to  go  outside  the 
law  ;  he  deposed  those  magistrates,  and  named  others 
by  his  sole  authority.  He  then  armed  his  partisans, 
and  established,  for  a  year,  a  reign  of  terror.  During 
that  time  he  was  enabled  to  apply  the  law  concerning 
debts,  and  to  burn  in  the  public  square  all  evidences 
of  debt;  but  he  had  not  time  to  divide  up  the  land. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Agis  hesitated  at  this  point, 
frightened  at  his  own  work,  or  whether  the  oligarchy 
circulated  well-devised  accusations  against  him.  At 
any  rate  the  people  left  him,  and  allowed  him  to  fall. 
The  ephors  put  him  to  death,  and  the  aristocratic  gov 
ernment  was  re-established. 

Cleomenes  took  up  the  projects  of  Agis,  but  with 
more  skill  and  fewer  scruples.  He  began  by  massa¬ 
cring  the  ephors;  he  boldly  suppressed  this  magistracy, 
which  was  odious  to  the  kings  and  to  the  popular  par¬ 
ty,  and  proscribed  the  rich.  After  these  measures  he 
carried  through  the  revolution;  he  distributed  the 
lands,  and  gave  the  rights  of  citizens  to  four  thousand 
Laconians.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  neither  Agis 
nor  Cleomenes  avowed  that  he  was  carrying  through  a 
revolution,  and  that  both,  claiming  to  act  in  the  name 
of  the  old  legislator,  Lycurgus,  pretended  that  they 
were  bringing  Sparta  back  to  her  ancient  usages.  As¬ 
suredly  the  constitution  of  Cleomenes  was  very  far 
from  them.  The  king  was  really  an  absolute  master; 
there  was  no  other  authority  as  a  counterpoise.  He 
reigned  after  the  manner  of  the  tyrants  who  then  held 
sway  in  most  of  the  Greek  cities,  and  the  Spartan 


CHAP.  XIII.  REVOLUTIONS  OF  SPARTA. 


467 


people,  satisfied  to  have  obtained  lands,  appeared  to 
care  very  little  for  political  liberty.  This  situation  did 
not  continue  long.  Cleomenes  wished  to  extend  the 
democratic  rule  to  all  Peloponnesus,  where  Aratus,  at 
the  very  same  time,  was  laboring  to  establish  liberty 
and  a  well-regulated  aristocracy.  In  all  the  cities,  the 
popular  party  agitated  in  the  name  of  Cleomenes,  hoping, 
like  Sparta,  to  obtain  an  abolition  of  debts  and  a  dis¬ 
tribution  of  lands.  It  was  this  unexpected  insurrection 
of  the  lower  classes  that  obliged  Aratus  to  change  all 
his  plans.  He  thought  he  could  count  upon  Macedo¬ 
nia,  whose  king,  Antigonus  Doson,  was  then  acting 
on  the  plan  of  attacking  the  tyrants  and  the  popular 
party  everywhere,  and  therefore  introduced  him  into 
Peloponnesus.  Antigonus  and  the  Achaeans  conquered 
Cleomenes  at  Sellasia.  The  Spartan  democracy  were 
again  overthrown,  and  the  Macedonians  re-established 
the  ancient  government  (B.  C.  222). 

But  the  oligarchy  could  no  longer  support  itself. 
Disturbances  continued  a  long  time;  one  year,  three 
ephors,  who  were  favorable  to  the  popular  party,  mas¬ 
sacred  their  two  colleagues  ;  the  following  year  the 
five  ephors  belonged  to  the  oligarchs.  The  people  took 
arms  and  killed  them  all.  The  oligarchy  wanted  no 
kings  ;  the  people  were  in  favor  of  kings  ;  one  was 
nominated  and  elected  outside  the  royal  family  —  a 
thing  that  had  never  been  known  before  at  Sparta. 
Phis  king,  named  Lycurgus,  was  twice  dethroned,  once 
by  the  people,  because  he  refused  to  divide  the  lands, 
and  a  second  time  by  the  aristocracy,  because  they 
suspected  him  of  wishing  to  make  the  partition.  It  is 
not  known  how  he  closed  his  reign  ;  but  after  him  there 
was  a  tyrant,  Machanidas,  at  Sparta  —  a  certain  proof 
that  the  popular  party  had  gained  the  ascendency. 


468 


THE  REVOLUTIONS. 


BOOK  IV. 


Philopcemen,  who,  at  the  head  of  the  Àchæan  league, 
made  war  everywhere  upon  democratic  tyrnnts,  con¬ 
quered  and  killed  Machanidas.  The  Spartan  democracy 
immediately  set  up  another  tyrant,  Nabis.  This  man 
gave  the  rights  of  citizens  to  all  freemen,  raising  the 
Laconians  themselves  to  the  rank  of  Spartans.  He  even 
freed  the  Helots.  Following  the  custom  of  the  tyrants 
of  the  Greek  cities,  he  became  the  leader  of  the  poor 
against  the  rich,  and  proscribed  or  put  to  death  those 
whose  riches  raised  them  above  others. 

This  new  democratic  Sparta  was  not  wanting  in 
grandeur.  Nabis  established  such  order  in  Laconia  as 
had  not  been  known  there  for  a  long  time.  He  brought 
Messenia,  Elis,  and  a  part  of  Arcadia  under  Spartan 
rule,  and  seized  Argos.  He  formed  a  navy,  which  was 
very  far  from  the  ancient  traditions  of  the  Spartan  aris¬ 
tocracy.  With  his  fleet  he  commanded  all  the  islands 
that  surround  Peloponnesus,  and  extended  his  influ¬ 
ence  even  over  Crete.  He  everywhere  raised  the 
democracy:  master  of  Argos,  his  first  care  was  to  con¬ 
fiscate  the  property  of  the  rich,  abolish  debts,  and  dis¬ 
tribute  the  lands.  We  can  see  in  Polybius  what  a 
hatred  the  Achæan  league  had  for  this  democratic 
tyrant.  The  league  determined  Flaminius  to  make 
war  upon  him  in  the  name  of  Rome.  Ten  thousand 
Laconians,  without  counting  mercenaries,  took  arms  to 
defend  Nabis.  After  a  check,  he  desired  to  make  peace  ; 
but  the  people  refused  :  so  much  was  the  tyrant’s  cause 
that  of  the  democracy.  Flaminius,  as  victor,  took  away 
a  part  of  his  forces,  but  allowed  him  to  reign  in  Laconia  ; 
either  because  the  impossibility  of  re-establishing  the 
old  government  was  too  evident,  or  because  it  was  for 
the  interest  of  Rome  that  there  should  be  a  few  tyrants, 
as  a  counterpoise  to  the  Achæan  league.  Nabis  was 


CHAP.  xra. 


REVOLUTIONS  OF  SPABTA. 


469 


afterwards  assassinated  by  an  Æolian  ;  but  his  death 
did  not  restore  the  oligarchy.  The  changes  which  he 
had  made  in  the  social  state  were  maintained  after 
him,  and  Rome  herself  refused  to  reutore  Sparta  to  her 
ancient  condition 


470 


MUNICIPAL  KEGIME  DISAPPEAKS. 


BOOK  V. 


HOOK  FIFTH. 

THE  MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

New  Beliefs.  Philosophy  changes  the  Rules  of  Politics. 

In  what  precedes  we  have  seen  how  the  municipal 
governments  were  constituted  among  the  ancients.  A 
very  ancient  religion  had  at  first  founded  the  family, 
and  afterwards  the  city.  At  first  it  had  established 
domestic  law  and  the  government  of  the  gens;  after¬ 
wards  it  had  established  civil  laws  and  municipal  gov¬ 
ernment.  The  state  was  closely  allied  with  religion  ;  it 
came  from  religion,  and  was  confounded  with  it.  For 
this  reason,  in  the  primitive  city  all  political  institutions 
had  been  religious  institutions,  the  festivals  had  been 
ceremonies  of  the  worship,  the  laws  had  been  sacred 
formulas,  and  the  kings  and  magistrates  had  been  priests. 
For  this  reason,  too,  individual  liberty  had  been  un¬ 
known,  and  man  had  not  been  able  to  withdraw  even  his 
conscience  from  the  omnipotence  of  the  city.  For  this 
reason,  also,  the  state  remained  bounded  by  the  limits 
of  a  city,  and  had  never  been  able  to  pass  the  bounda- 
lies  which  its  national  gods  had  originally  traced  for  it. 
Every  city  had  not  only  its  political  independence,  but 
also  its  worship  and  its  code.  Religion,  law,  govern- 


*ÎHAP.  I. 


NEW  BELIEFS - PHILOSOPHY. 


471 


ment,  all  were  municipal.  The  city  was  the  single 
living  force;  there  was  nothing  above  and  nothing  be 
low  it;  neither  national  unity  nor  individual  liberty. 

It  remains  for  us  to  relate  how  this  system  dis¬ 
appeared, —  that  is  to  say,  how,  the  principle  of  human 
association  being  changed,  government,  religion,  and 
law  threw  off  this  municipal  character  which  they  had 
borne  in  antiquity. 

The  ruin  of  the  governments  which  Greece  and  Italy 
had  created  was  due  to  two  principal  causes.  One  be 
longed  to  the  order  of  moral  and  intellectual  facts,  the 
other  to  the  order  of  material  facts  ;  the  first  is  the 
transformation  of  beliefs,  the  second  is  the  Roman 
conquest.  These  two  great  facts  belong  to  the  same 
period  ;  they  were  developed  and  accomplished  to¬ 
gether  during  the  series  of  six  centuries  which  preceded 
our  era. 

The  primitive  religion,  whose  symbols  were  the  im¬ 
movable  stone  of  the  hearth,  and  the  ancestral  tomb,  — 
a  religion  which  had  established  the  ancient  family,  and 
had  afterwards  organized  the  city,  — changed  with  time, 
and  grew  old.  The  human  mind  increased  in  strength, 
and  adopted  new  beliefs.  Men  began  to  have  an  idea 
of  immaterial  nature  ;  the  notion  of  the  human  soul 
became  more  definite,  and  almost  at  the  same  time  that 
of  a  divine  intelligence  sprang  up  in  their  minds. 

Could  they  still  believe  in  the  divinities  of  the  prim¬ 
itive  ages,  of  those  dead  men  who  lived  in  the  tomb,  of 
those  Lares  who  had  been  men,  of  those  holy  ances¬ 
tors  whom  it  was  necessary  to  continue  to  nourish  with 
food  ?  Such  a  faith  became  impossible.  Such  beliefs 
were  no  longer  on  a  level  with  the  human  mind.  It  is 
quite  true  that  these  prejudices,  though  rude,  were  not 
easily  eradicated  from  the  vulgar  mind.  They  still 


472 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


reigned  there  for  a  long  time  ;  but  from  the  fifth  cen- 
tury  before  our  era,  reflecting  men  freed  themselves 
from  these  errors.  They  had  other  ideas  of  death. 
Some  believed  in  annihilation,  others  in  a  second  and 
entirely  spiritual  existence  in  a  world  of  spirits.  In 
these  cases  they  no  longer  admitted  that  the  dead 
lived  in  the  tomb,  supporting  themselves  upon  offerings. 
They  also  began  to  have  too  high  an  idea  of  the  divine 
to  persist  in  believing  that  the  dead  were  gods.  On 
the  contrary,  they  imagined  the  soul  going  to  seek  its 
recompense  in  the  Elysian  Fields,  or  going  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  its  crimes  ;  and  by  a  notable  progress,  they 
no  longer  deified  any  among  men,  except  those  whom 
gratitude  or  flattery  placed  above  humanity. 

The  idea  of  the  divinity  was  slowly  transformed  by 
the  natural  effect  of  the  greater  power  of  the  mind. 
This  idea,  which  man  had  at  first  applied  to  the  invisi¬ 
ble  force  which  he  felt  within  himself,  he  transported 
to  the  incomparably  grander  powers  which  he  saw  in 
nature,  whilst  he  was  elevating  himself  to  the  concep¬ 
tion  of  a  being  who  was  without  and  above  nature. 
Then  the  Lares  and  Heroes  lost  the  adoration  of  all  who 
thought.  As  to  the  sacred  fire,  which  appears  to  have 
had  no  significance,  except  so  far  as  it  was  connected 
with  the  worship  of  the  dead,  that  also  lost  its  prestige. 
Men  continued  to  have  a  domestic  fire  in  the  house,  to 
salute  it,  to  adore  it,  and  to  offer  it  libations;  but  this 
was  now  only  a  customary  worship,  which  faith  no 
longer  vivified. 

The  public  hearth  of  the  city,  or  prytaneum,  was 
insensibly  drawn  into  the  discredit  into  which  the  do¬ 
mestic  fire  had  fallen.  Men  no  longer  knew  what  it 
signified  ;  they  had  forgotten  that  the  ever-living  fire 
of  the  prytaneum  represented  the  invisible  life  of  the 


CHAP.  I. 


NEW  BELIEFS - PHILOSOPHY. 


473 


national  ancestors,  founders,  and  heroes.  They  con¬ 
tinued  to  keep  up  this  fire,  to  have  public  meals,  and  to 
sing  the  old  hymns  —  vain  ceremonies,  of  which  they 
dared  not  free  themselves,  but  the  sense  of  which  no 
one  understood. 

Even  the  divinities  of  nature,  which  they  had  as 
sociated  with  the  sacred  fire,  changed  their  character. 
After  having  commenced  by  being  domestic  divinities, 
after  having  become  city  divinities,  they  were  trans¬ 
formed  again.  Men  finally  perceived  that  the  different 
beings  whom  they  called  by  the  name  of  Jupiter,  might 
be  only  one  and  the  same  being;  and  thus  of  other 
gods.  The  mind  was  oppressed  with  the  multitude  of 
divinities,  and  felt  the  need  of  reducing  their  number. 
Men  understood  that  the  gods  no  longer  belonged  each 
to  a  family  or  to  a  city,  but  that  they  all  belonged  to 
the  human  race,  and  watched  over  the  universe.  Poets 
went  from  city  to  city,  and  taught  men,  instead  of  the 
old  hymns  of  the  city,  new  songs,  wherein  neither 
Lares  nor  city-protecting  divinities  appeared,  and  where 
the  legends  of  the  great  gods  of  heaven  and  earth  were 
related  ;  and  the  Greek  people  forgot  their  old  domestic 
and  national  hymns  for  this  new  poetry,  which  was  not 
the  daughter  of  religion,  but  of  art  and  of  a  free  imagi¬ 
nation.  At  the  same  time  a  few  great  sanctuaries,  like 
those  of  Delphi  and  Delos,  attracted  men,  and  made 
them  forget  their  local  worship.  The  mysteries  and 
the  doctrines  which  these  taught  accustomed  them  to 
disdain  the  empty  and  meaningless  religion  of  the  city. 

Thus  an  intellectual  revolution  took  place  slowly  and 
obscurely.  Even  the  priests  made  no  opposition,  for  as 
long  as  the  sacrifices  continued  to  be  offered  on  desig¬ 
nated  days,  it  seemed  to  them  that  the  ancient  religion 
was  preserved.  Ideas  might  change,  and  faith  perish 


474 


MUNICIPAL  regime  disappears. 


BOOK  Y. 


provided  the  rites  received  no  attack.  It  happened, 
therefore,  without  the  practices  being  modified,  that  the 
beliefs  were  transformed,  and  that  the  domestic  and 
municipal  religion  lost  all  influence  over  the  minds 
of  men. 

Then  philosophy  appeared,  and  overthrew  all  the 
rules  of  the  ancient  polity.  It  was  impossible  to  touch 
the  opinions  of  men  without  also  touching  the  funda¬ 
mental  principles  of  their  government.  Pythagoras, 
having  a  vague  conception  of  the  Supreme  Being,  dis¬ 
dained  the  local  worships;  and  this  was  sufficient  to 
cause  him  to  reject  the  old  modes  of  government,  and 
to  attempt  to  found  a  new  order  of  society. 

Anaxagoras  comprehended  the  God-Intelligence 
which  reigns  over  all  men  and  all  beings.  In  reject¬ 
ing  ancient  religious  notions,  he  also  rejected  ancient 
polity.  As  he  did  not  believe  in  the  gods  of  the  pryta- 
neum,  he  no  longer  fulfilled  all  the  duties  of  a  citizen; 
he  avoided  the  assemblies,  and  would  not  be  a  magis¬ 
trate.  His  doctrine  was  an  attack  upon  the  city  ;  and 
the  Athenians  condemned  him  to  death. 

The  Sophists  came  afterwards,  and  exercised  more 
influence  than  these  two  great  minds.  They  were  men 
eager  to  combat  old  errors.  In  the  struggle  which 
they  entered  against  whatever  belonged  to  the  past, 
they  did  not  spare  the  institutions  of  the  city  more 
than  they  spared  religious  prejudices.  They  boldly 
examined  and  discussed  the  laws  which  still  reigned  in 
the  state  and  in  the  family.  They  went  from  city  to 
city,  proclaiming  new  principles,  teaching,  not  precisely 
indifference  to  the  just  and  the  unjust,  but  a  new  justice, 
less  narrow,  less  exclusive  than  the  old,  more  humane, 
more  rational,  and  freed  from  the  formulas  of  preceding 
ages.  Phis  was  a  hardy  enterprise,  which  stirred  up  a 


CHAP.  I. 


NEW  BELIEFS - PHILOSOPHY. 


475 


tempest  of  hatred  and  rancor.  They  were  accused  of 
having  neither  religion,  nor  morals,  nor  patriotism. 
The  truth  is,  that  they  had  not  a  very  well  settled 
doctrine,  and  thought  they  had  done  enough  when 
they  had  attacked  old  prejudices.  They  moved,  as 
Plato  says,  what  before  had  been  immovable.  They 
placed  the  rule  of  religious  sentiment,  and  that  of 
politics,  in  the  human  conscience,  and  not  in  the  cus¬ 
toms  of  ancestors,  in  immutable  tradition.  They 
taught  the  Greeks  that  to  govern  a  state  it  was  not 
enough  to  appeal  to  old  customs  and  sacred  laws,  but 
that  men  should  be  persuaded  and  their  wills  should 
be  influenced.  For  the  knowledge  of  ancient  customs 
they  substituted  the  art  of  reasoning  and  speaking  — 
dialectics  and  rhetoric.  Their  adversaries  quoted  tra¬ 
dition  to  them,  while  they,  on  the  other  hand,  employed 
eloquence  and  intellect. 

When  reflection  had  thus  been  once  awakened,  man 
no  longer  wished  to  believe  without  giving  a  reason 
for  his  belief,  or  to  be  governed  without  discussing 
his  institutions.  He  doubted  the  justice  of  his  old 
social  laws,  and  other  principles  dawned  upon  his 
mind.  Plato  puts  these  remarkable  words  in  the 
mouth  of  a  Sophist  :  “  All  you  who  are  here,  I  regard 
as  related  to  each  other.  Nature,  in  default  of  law, 
has  made  you  citizens.  But  the  law,  that  tyrant  of 
man,  does  violence  to  nature  on  many  occasions.” 
Thus  to  oppose  nature  to  law  and  custom  was  to 
attack  the  ancient  political  system  at  its  foundation. 
In  vain  did  the  Athenians  banish  Protagoras  am 
burn  his  writings:  the  blow  had  been  struck:  the 
result  of  the  teachings  of  the  Sophists  had  been  im¬ 
mense.  The  authority  of  the  old  institutions  perished 
lvitli  the  authority  of  the  national  gods,  and  the 


476 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V. 


habit  of  free  examination  became  established  in  men’s 
homes  and  in  the  public  squares. 

Socrates,  while  reproving  the  abuse  which  the 
Sophists  made  of  the  right  to  doubt,  was  still  of  their 
school.  Like  them  he  rejected  the  empire  of  tradition, 
and  believed  that  the  rules  of  conduct  were  graven  in 
the  human  conscience.  He  differed  from  them  only 
in  this  ;  he  studied  conscience  religiously,  and  with  a 
firm  desire  to  find  there  an  obligation  to  be  just  and  to 
do  good.  He  ranked  truth  above  custom,  and  justice 
above  the  law.  He  separated  morals  from  religion  : 
before  him,  men  never  thought  of  a  duty  except  as  a 
command  of  the  ancient  gods.  He  showed  that  the 
principle  of  duty  is  in  the  human  mind.  In  all  this, 
whether  he  wished  it  or  not,  he  made  war  upon  the 
city  worship.  In  vain  he  took  pains  to  be  present  at 
all  the  festivals  and  took  part  in  the  sacrifices;  his 
belief  and  his  words  contradicted  his  conduct.  He 
founded  a  new  religion,  which  was  the  opposite  of  the 
city  religion.  He  was  justly  accused  of  not  adoring  the 
gods  whom  the  state  adored.  Men  put  him  to  death 
for  having  attacked  the  customs  and  the  beliefs  of 
their  ancestors,  or,  as  they  expressed  it,  for  having  cor¬ 
rupted  the  present  generation.  The  unpopularity  of 
Socrates  and  the  violent  rage  of  the  citizens  are 
explained  if  we  think  of  the  religious  habits  of  that 
Athenian  society  where  there  were  so  many  priests, 
and  where  they  were  so  powerful.  But  the  revolu¬ 
tion  which  the  Sophists  had  commenced,  and  which 
Socrates  had  taken  up  with  more  moderation,  was  not 
stopped  by  the  death  of  the  old  man.  Greek  society 
was  enfranchised  more  and  more,  daily,  from  the 
empire  of  old  beliefs  and  old  institutions. 

After  him  philosophers  freely  discussed  the  prin 


CHAP.  I. 


NEW  BELIEFS  —  PHILOSOPHY. 


477 


ciples  and  rules  of  human  association.  Plato,  Crito, 
Antisthenes,  Speusippus,  Aristotle,  Theophrastus,  and 
many  others  wrote  treatises  on  politics.  They  studied 
and  examined  ;  the  great  problems  of  the  organiza¬ 
tion  ot  a  state,  ot  authority  and  obedience,  of  obliga¬ 
tions  and  rights,  were  presented  to  all  minds. 

Doubtless  thought  could  not  easily  free  itself  from 
the  bonds  which  habit  had  made  for  it.  Plato  still 
yielded,  in  certain  points,  to  the  empire  of  old  ideas. 
The  state  which  he  imagines  is  still  the  ancient  city  : 
it  is  small  ;  it  must  not  contain  more  than  five  thou¬ 
sand  members.  Its  government  is  still  regulated  on 
ancient  principles:  liberty  is  unknown  in  it;  the 
object  which  the  legislator  proposes  to  himself  is  less 
the  perfection  of  man  than  the  security  and  grandeur  of 
the  association.  The  family,  even,  is  almost  suppressed, 
that  it  may  not  come  into  competition  with  the  city  : 
the  state  is  the  only  proprietor  ;  it  alone  is  free  :  the 
state  alone  has  a  will  ;  only  the  state  has  a  religion 
and  a  belief,  and  whoever  does  not  believe  with  it 
must  perish.  And  yet  in  the  midst  of  all  this  the  new 
ideas  appear.  Plato  proclaims,  with  Socrates  and  the 
Sophists,  that  the  moral  and  political  guide  is  in  our¬ 
selves  ;  that  tradition  is  nothing,  that  reason  must  be 
consulted,  and  that  laws  are  just  only  when  they  con¬ 
form  to  human  nature. 

These  ideas  are  still  more  precise  in  Aristotle. 
“The  law,”  he  says,  “is  reason.”  He  teaches  that  we 
are  to  seek,  not  what  conforms  to  the  customs  of 
ancestors,  but  what  is  good  in  itself.  He  adds  that,  as 
time  progresses,  institutions  should  be  modified.  He 
puts  aside  respect  for  ancestors.  “  Our  first  ancestors, 
whether  they  came  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  oi 
survived  some  deluge,  resembled,  in  all  probability, 


478 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


those  who  to-day  are  the  most  degraded  and  the  most 
ignorant  among  men.  It  would  be  an  evident  absur¬ 
dity  to  cling  to  the  opinions  of  those  men.”  Aris¬ 
totle,  like  ail  the  philosophers,  absolutely  disregards 
the  religious  origin  of  human  society:  he  does  not 
speak  of  the  prytaneura  ;  he  does  not  admit  that  these 
local  worships  were  the  foundation  of  the  state.  “The 
state,  he  says,  “is  nothing  else  but  an  association  of 
equal  beings  seeking  in  common  a  happy  and  com¬ 
fortable  existence.”  Thus  philosophy  rejects  the  old 
principles  of  society,  and  seeks  a  new  foundation  on 

which  it  may  support  social  laws  and  the  idea  of 
country.1 

The  Cynic  school  goes  farther.  It  denies  the  ties 
of  country  itself.  Diogenes  boasted  that  he  had  the 
rights  of  a  citizen  nowhere,  and  Crates  said  that  his 
country  was  a  contempt  for  the  opinions  of  others. 
The  Cynics  added  this  truth,  then  quite  new  —  that 
man  is  a  citizen  of  the  universe,  and  that  his  country  is 
not  the  narrow  territory  of  a  city.  They  considered 
municipal  patriotism  as  a  prejudice,  and  excluded  love 
of  the  city  from  the  moral  sentiments. 

From  disgust  or  disdain,  philosophers  avoided  pub¬ 
lic  affairs  more  and  more.  Socrates  had  fulfilled 
the  duties  of  a  citizen  ;  and  Plato  had  attempted  to 
work  for  the  state  by  reforming  it.  Aristotle,  still 
more  indifferent,  confined  himself  to  the  part  of  an 
observer,  and  made  the  state  an  object  of  scientific 
study.  The  Epicureans  paid  no  attention  to  public 
affairs.  “Do  not  meddle  with  them,”  said  Epicurus, 
mo  hi^hor*  power  compels  you  to.”  The 
Cynics  did  not  wish  even  to  be  citizens. 

1  Aristotle,  Politics,  II.  5,  12;  IV.  5;  7,  2 ,  VII.  4  (VI.  4). 


phap.  i. 


NEW  BELIEFS  - PHILOSOPHY. 


479 


The  Stoics  returned  to  politics.  Zeno,  Cleanthes, 
and  Chrysippus  wrote  numerous  treatises  on  the 
government  of  states.  But  their  principles  were  far 
removed  from  the  old  municipal  politics.  These  are 
the  terms  in  which  one  of  the  ancients  speaks  of  the 
doctrines  which  their  writings  contained:  “Zeno,  in 
his  treatise  on  government,  has  undertaken  to  show  us 
that  we  are  not  the  inhabitants  of  such  a  deme,  or 
such  a  city,  separated  from  each  other  by  a  particular 
code,  or  exclusive  laws,  but  that  we  should  see  citizens 
in  all  men,  as  if  we  all  belonged  to  the  same  deme 
and  the  same  city.”  1  We  see  from  this  how  far  ideas 
had  advanced  since  the  nge  of  Socrates,  who  thought 
himself  bound  to  adore,  as  far  as  he  was  able,  the 
gods  of  the  state.  Even  Plato  did  not  plan  any  other 
government  than  that  of  a  city.  Zeno  passed  beyond 
these  narrow  limits  of  human  associations.  He  dis¬ 
dained  the  divisions  which  the  religion  of  ancient 

O 

ages  had  established.  As  he  believed  in  a  God  of  the 
universe,  so  he  had  also  the  idea  of  a  State  into  which 
the  whole  human  race  should  enter.2 

But  here  is  a  still  newer  principle.  Stoicism,  by 
enlarging  human  association,  emancipates  the  indi¬ 
vidual.  As  it  rejects  the  religion  of  the  city,  it  re¬ 
jects  also  the  servitude  of  the  citizen.  It  no  longer 
desires  that  the  individual  man  shall  be  sacrificed 
to  the  state.  It  distinguishes  and  separates  clearly 
what  ought  to  remain  free  in  man,  and  frees  at  least 
the  conscience.  It  tells  man  that  he  ought  to  shut 

1  Pseudo  Plutarch,  Fortune  of  Alexander,  1. 

*  The  idea  of  the  universal  city  is  expressed  by  Seneca,  ad 
Marciam,  4,  De  Tranquillitaie,  14  ;  by  Plutarch,  De  Exsilio  ;  by 
Marcus  Aurelius  :  “  As  Antoninus,  I  have  Rome  for  my  country; 
as  a  man,  the  world.” 


480 


MUNICIPAL  "REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


himself  up  within  himself,  to  find  in  himself  duty, 
virtue,  and  reward.  It  does  not  forbid  him  to  meddle 
with  public  affairs;  it  even  invites  him  to  affairs  of 
state,  still  warning  him,  however,  that  his  principal 
labor  ought  to  have  for  its  object  his  individual  im¬ 
provement,  and  that  whatever  the  government  may  . 
be,  his  conscience  ought  to  remain  free, —  a  great  prin¬ 
ciple  which  the  ancient  city  had  always  disregarded,  but 
which  was  destined  to  become  one  of  the  most  sacred 
rules  of  politics. 

Men  now  begin  to  understand  that  there  are  other 
duties  besides  those  towards  the  state,  other  virtues 
besides  civic  virtue.  The  mind  is  attached  to  other 
objects  besides  country.  The  ancient  city  had  been  so 
powerful  and  so  tyrannical  that  man  had  made  it  the 
object  of  all  his  labor  and  of  all  his  virtues.  It  had 
been  his  standard  of  the  beautiful  and  the  good,  and 
except  for  that  there  was  no  heroism.  But  now  Zeno 
teaches  man  that  he  has  a  dignity,  not  as  a  citizen,  but 
as  a  man  ;  that  besides  his  obligations  to  the  law,  he 
has  others  to  himself  ;  and  that  the  supreme  merit  is 
not  to  live  or  to  die  for  the  state,  but  to  be  virtuous 
and  to  please  the  Deity.  These  were  somewhat  selfish 
virtues,  which  left  national  independence  and  liberty  to 
fall  ;  but  they  gave  the  individual  more  importance. 
The  public  virtues  went  on  declining,  while  the  per¬ 
sonal  virtues  were  evolved  and  came  forth  into  the 
world.  They  had  at  first  to  struggle  both  against  the 
general  corruption  and  against  despotism.  But  they 
became  rooted  in  the  minds  of  men  by  degrees,  and, 
as  time  went  on,  became  a  power  which  every  govern¬ 
ment  had  to  take  into  account;  and  it  was  of  the  first 
importance  that  the  rules  of  politics  should  be  modi¬ 
fied,  so  that  a  free  place  might  be  made  for  them. 


cH^r.  h. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


481 


Thus  were  these  religious  notions  transformed,  iittl« 
by  little  ;  the  municipal  religion,  the  basis  of  the  citv 
disappeared,  and  the  municipal  governments,  such  as 
the  ancients  had  conceived  them,  were  forced  to  fail 
with  it.  Insensibly  men  departed  from  those  rigorous 
rules,  and  from  those  narrow  forms  of  government. 
Higher  ideas  prompted  men  to  form  more  extensive 
societies.  They  were  attracted  towards  unity;  this 
was  *,he  general  aspiration  for  two  centuries  preceding 
our  era.  The  fruits  which  these  revolutions  of  knowl¬ 
edge  bore  were,  it  is  true,  very  slow  to  mature  ;  but  we 
shall  see,  in  studying  the  Roman  conquest,  that  events 
moved  in  the  same  direction  with  these  ideas,  that, 
like  them,  they  tended  to  the  ruin  of  the  old  municipal 
system,  and  that  they  prepared  new  modes  of  govern¬ 
ment. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Roman  Conquest, 

At  first  it  appears  very  surprising  that  among  the 
thousand  cities  of  Greece  and  Italy  one  was  found  ca¬ 
pable  of  subduing  all  the  others.  Yet  this  great  event 
is  due  to  the  ordinary  causes  that  determine  the  course 
of  human  affairs.  The  wisdom  of  Rome  consisted,  like 
all  wisdom,  in  profiting  by  the  favorable  circumstance 
that  fell  in  its  way. 

We  can  distinguish  two  periods  in  the  work  of  the 
Roman  conquest.  One  corresponds  to  the  time  when  the 
old  municipal  spirit  was  still  strong;  it  was  then  that 
Rome  had  the  greatest  number  of  obstacles  to  surmount. 
The  second  belonged  to  the  time  when  the  municipal 

31 


482 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


spirit  was  much  weakened  ;  conquest  then  became  easy, 
and  was  accomplished  rapidly. 

1.  The  Origin  and  Population  of  Pome. 

The  origin  of  Rome  and  the  composition  of  its  peo¬ 
ple  are  worthy  of  remark.  They  explain  the  particu¬ 
lar  character  of  its  policy,  and  the  exceptional  part  that 
fell  to  it  from  the  beginning  in  the  midst  of  other 
cities. 

The  Roman  race  was  strangely  mixed.  The  princi¬ 
pal  element  was  Latin,  and  originally  from  Alba;  but 
these  Albans  themselves,  according  to  traditions  which 
no  criticism  authorizes  us  to  reject,  were  composed  of 
two  associated,  but  not  confounded,  populations.  One 
was  the  aboriginal  race,  real  Latins.  The  other  was 
of  foreign  origin,  and  was  said  to  have  come  from  Troy 
with  Æneas,  the  priest-founder;  it  was,  to  all  appear¬ 
ance,  not  numerous,  but  was  influential  from  the  wor¬ 
ship  and  the  institutions  which  it  had  brought  with  it.* 

These  Albans,  a  mixture  of  two  races,  founded  Rome 
on  a  spot  where  another  city  had  already  been  built  — 
Pallantium,  founded  by  the  Greeks.  Now,  the  popu¬ 
lation  of  Pallantium  remained  in  the  new  city,  and  the 
rites  of  the  Greek  worship  were  preserved  there.2  There 
was  also,  where  the  Capitol  afterwards  stood,  a  city 
which  was  said  to  have  been  founded  by  Hercules,  the 
families  of  which  remained  distinct  from  the  rest  of  the 

1  The  Trojan  origin  of  Rome  was  a  received  opinion  even  before 
Rome  was  in  regular  communication  with  the  East.  A  sooth¬ 
sayer,  in  a  prediction  which  related  to  the  second  Punic  war, 
applied  to  the  Romans  the  epithet  Trojugena .  Livy,  XXV.  12 

8  Livy,  I.  5.  Virgil,  VIII.  Ovid,  Fasti ,  I.  579.  Plutarch, 
horn.  Quest. y  66.  Strabo,  V.  p.  230. 


CHAT.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


483 


Roman  population  during  the  entire  continuance  of  the 
republic.1 

Thus  at  Rome  all  races  were  associated  and  mingled  : 
there  were  Latins,  Trojans,  and  Greeks;  there  were,  a 
little  later,  Sabines  and  Etruscans.  Of  the  several 
hills,  the  Palatine  was  the  Latin  city,  after  having  been 
the  city  of  Evander.  The  Capitoline,  after  having  been 
the  dwelling-place  of  the  companions  of  Hercules,  be¬ 
came  the  home  of  the  Sabines  of  Tatius.  T1  îe  Quirinal 
received  its  name  from  the  Sabine  Quirites,  or  from  the 
Sabine  god  Quirinus.  The  Coelian  hill  appears  to  have 
been  inhabited  from  the  beginning  by  Etruscans.2  Rome 
did  not  seem  to  be  a  single  city;  it  appeared  like  a 
confederation  of  several  cities,  each  one  of  which  was 
attached  by  its  origin  to  another  confederation.  It 
was  the  centre  where  the  Latins,  Etruscans,  Sabellians, 
and  Greeks  met. 

Its  first  king  was  a  Latin  ;  the  second,  a  Sabine;  the 
fifth  was,  we  are  told,  the  son  of  a  Greek;  the  sixth 
was  an  Etruscan. 

Its  language  was  composed  of  the  most  diverse  ele 
ments.  The  Latin  predominated,  but  Sabellian  roots 
were  numerous,  and  more  Greek  radicals  were  found 
in  it  than  in  any  other  of  the  dialects  of  Central  Italy. 
As  to  its  name,  no  one  knew  to  what  language  that  be¬ 
longed.  According  to  some,  Rome  was  a  Trojan  word  ; 
according  to  others,  a  Greek  word.  There  are  reasons 
for  believing  h,  to  be  Latin,  but  some  of  the  ancients 
thought  it  to  be  Etruscan. 

The  names  of  Roman  families  also  attest  a  great  di- 

1  Dionysius,  1.  85.  Yarro,  L.  L .,  Y.  42.  Virgil,  VIII.  85K. 

8  Of  the  three  names  of  the  primitive  tribes,  the  ancients  al¬ 
ways  believed  that  one  was  Latin,  another  Sabine,  and  the  third 
Etruscan. 


484 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


versity  of  origin.  In  the  time  of  Augustus  there  wer*, 
still  some  fifty  families  who,  by  ascending  the  series  of 
their  ancestors,  arrived  at  the  companions  of  Æneas.1 
Others  claimed  to  be  descendants  of  the  Arcadian 
Evander,  and  from  time  immemorial  the  men  of  these 
families  wore  upon  their  shoes,  as  a  distinctive  sign,  a 
small  silver  crescent.2  The  Potitian  and  Pinarian  fam¬ 
ilies  were  descended  from  those  who  were  called  the 
companions  of  Hercules,  and  their  descent  was  proved 
by  the  hereditary  worship  of  that  god.  The  Tullii, 
Quinctii,  and  Servilii  came  from  Alba  after  the  con¬ 
quest  of  that  city.  Many  families  joined  to  their  name 
a  surname  which  recalled  their  foreign  origin.  There 
were  thus  the  Sulpicii  Camerini,  the  Cominii  Arunci, 
the  Sicinii  Sabini,  the  Claudii  Kegillenses,  and  the 
Aquillii  Tusci.  The  Nautian  family  was  Trojan,  the 
Aurelii  were  Sabines;  the  Cæcilii  came  from  Præneste, 
and  the  Octavii  were  originally  from  Velitrae. 

The  effect  of  this  mixing  of  the  most  diverse  nations 
was,  that  from  the  beginning  Rome  was  related  to  all 
the  peoples  that  it  knew.  It  could  call  itself  Latin 
with  the  Latins,  Sabine  with  the  Sabines,  Etruscan 
with  the  Etruscans,  and  Greek  with  the  Greeks. 

Its  national  worship  was  also  an  assemblage  of  sev¬ 
eral  quite  different  worships,  each  one  of  which  at¬ 
tached  it  to  one  of  these  nations.  It  had  the  Greek 
worship  of  Evander  and  Hercules,  and  boasted  of  pos¬ 
sessing  the  Trojan  Palladium.  Its  Penates  were  in  the 
Latin  city  of  Lavinium,  and  it  adopted  from  the  begin¬ 
ning  the  Sabine  worship  of  the  god  Consus.  Another 
Sabine  god,  Quirinus,  was  so  firmly  established  at 
Rome  that  he  was  associated  with  Romulus,  its  founder. 


1  Dionysius,  I.  85. 


*  Plutarch,  Rom .  Quest .,  78. 


«ühap.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


485 


It  had  also  the  gods  of  the  Etruscans,  and  their  fes¬ 
tivals,  and  their  augurs,  and  even  their  sacerdotal  in¬ 
signia. 

At  a  time  when  no  one  had  the  right  to  take  part  in 
the  religious  festivals  of  a  nation  unless  he  belonged  by 
birth  to  that  nation,  the  Roman  had  this  incomparable 
advantage  of  being  able  to  take  part  in  the  Latin  holi¬ 
days,  the  Sabine  festivals,  the  Etruscan  festivals,  and 
the  Olympic  games.1  Now,  religion  was  a  powerful 
bond.  When  two  cities  had  a  single  worship,  they 
called  themselves  relations  ;  they  were  required  to  re¬ 
gard  themselves  as  allies,  and  to  aid  each  other.  In 
ancient  times  men  knew  of  no  other  union  than  that 
which  religion  established.  Rome  therefore  preserved 
with  great  care  whatever  could  serve  as  an  evidence 
of  this  precious  relationship  with  other  nations.  To 
the  Latins  it  presented  its  traditions  of  Romulus;  to 
the  Sabines  its  legend  of  Tarpeia  and  Tatius;  to  the 
Greeks  it  quoted  the  old  hymns  which  it  had  preserved 
in  honor  of  Evander’s  mother,  hymns  which  Romans 
no  longer  understood,  but  which  they  persisted  in  sing¬ 
ing.  They  also  preserved  the  recollection  of  Æneas 
with  the  greatest  care  ;  for  if  they  could  claim  relation¬ 
ship  with  the  Peloponnesians  through  Evander,2  they 
were  related  through  Æneas  to  more  than  thirty  cities,3 
scattered  through  Italy,  Sicily,  Greece,  Thrace,  and 
Asia  Minor,  all  having  had  Æneas  for  a  founder,  or 
being  colonies  of  cities  founded  by  him, --all  having, 
consequently,  a  common  worship  with  Rome.  We  can 
see  in  the  wars  which  they  waged  in  Sicily  against 

1  Pausanias,  V.  23,  24.  Comp.  Livy,  XXIX.  12  ;  XXXVII.  37. 

*  Pausaiias,  VIII.  43.  Strabo,  V.  p.  232. 

Servius,  ad  Æn .,  III.  12. 


486 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  Y. 


Carthage,  and  in  Greece  against  Philip,  what  advan 
tage  they  derived  from  this  ancient  relationship. 

The  Roman  population  was,  then,  a  mixture  of  sev¬ 
eral  races,  its  worship  was  an  assemblage  of  several 
worships,  and  its  national  hearth  an  association  of  sev¬ 
eral  hearths.  It  was  almost  the  only  city  whose  mu¬ 
nicipal  religion  was  not  isolated  from  all  others.  It 
was  related  to  all  Italy  and  all  Greece.  There  was 
hardly  a  people  that  it  could  not  admit  to  its  hearth. 

2.  First  Aggrandizement  of  .Rome  (. B .  C.  753-350). 

During  the  period  when  the  municipal  religion  was 
everywhere  powerful,  it  governed  the  policy  of  Rome. 

We  are  told  that  the  first  act  of  the  new  city  was  to 
seize  some  Sabine  women  —  a  legend  which  appears 
very  improbable  when  we  reflect  on  the  sanctity  of 
marriage  among  the  ancients;  but  we  have  seen  above 
that  the  municipal  religion  forbade  marriage  between 
persons  of  different  cities  unless  these  two  cities  had  a 
common  origin  or  a  common  worship.  The  first  Ro¬ 
mans  had  the  i;ght  of  intermarriage  with  Alba,  from 
which  they  originally  came,  but  not  with  their  other 
neighbors,  the  Sabines.  What  Romulus  wished  to  ob¬ 
tain  first  of  all  was  not  a  few  women;  it  was  the  right 
of  intermarriage,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  right  of  contract¬ 
ing  regular  relations  with  the  Sabine  population.  For 
this  purpose  a  religious  bond  must  be  established  be¬ 
tween  them;  he  therefore  adopted  the  worship  of  the 
Sabine  god  Consus,  and  celebrated  his  festival.1  Tra¬ 
dition  adds  that  during  this  festival  he  carried  off  the 
women.  If  he  had  done  this,  the  marriages  could  not 

1  Dionysii»*  II.  30. 


chap.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


487 


Have  been  celebrated  according  to  the  rites,  since  the 
first  and  most  necessary  act  of  the  marriage  was  the 
traditio  in  manum ,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  giving  away 
of  the  daughter  by  the  father;  Romulus  would  have 
failed  of  liis  object.  But  the  presence  of  the  Sabines 
and  their  families  at  the  religious  ceremony,  and  their 
participation  in  the  sacrifice,  established  between  the 
two  nations  a  bond  such  that  the  counubium  could  no 
longer  be  refused.  There  was  no  need  of  a  seizure  ; 
the  right  of  intermarriage  was  a  natural  consequence 
of  the  festival.  And  the  historian  Dionysius,  who  con¬ 
sulted  ancient  documents  and  hymns,  assures  us  that 
the  Sabines  were  married  according  to  the  most  solemn 
rites,  which  is  confirmed  by  Plutarch  and  Cicero.  It 
is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  result  of  the  first  effort 
of  the  Romans  was  to  throw  down  the  barriers  which 
the  municipal  religion  had  placed  between  two  neigh¬ 
boring  nations.  No  similar  legend  relative  to  Etruria 
has  come  down  to  us,  but  it  appears  quite  certain  that 
Rome  had  the  same  relations  with  that  country  as 
with  Latium  and  the  Sabines.  The  Romans  therefore 
had  the  address  to  unite  themselves,  by  worship  and 
by  blood,  with  all  the  nations  around  them.  They 
took  care  to  have  the  connubium  with  all  the  cities  ; 
and  what  proves  that  they  well  understood  the  ini- 
portance  of  this  bond  is,  that  they  would  not  permit 
other  cities,  their  subjects,  to  have  it  among  them¬ 
selves.1 

Rome  then  entered  upon  the  long  series  of  its  wars. 
The  first  was  against  the  Sabines  ofTatius;  it  was  ter* 
minated  by  a  religious  and  political  alliance  between 
these  two  little  nations.  It  next  made  war  upon  Alba, 


1  Livy,  IX.  43;  XX11I.  4. 


483 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V 


The  historians  say  that  the  Romans  dared  to  attack 
this  city,  though  they  were  a  colony  from  it.  It  was 
precisely  because  t  uey  were  a  colony  from  Alba  tha/ 
they  judged  it  necessary  to  destroy  that  city.  Indeed, 
every  metropolis  exercised  a  religious  supremacy  over 
its  colonies,  and  religion  then  had  so  great  an  influence 
that  while  Alba  remained  standing,  Rome  could  be 
only  a  dependent  city,  and  her  progress  would  be  for¬ 
ever  arrested. 

After  the  destruction  of  Alba,  Rome  was  no  longer 
content  to  remain  a  colony,  but  claimed  to  take  the 
rank  of  a  metropolis,  by  inheriting  the  rights  and  the 
religious  supremacy  which  up  to  that  time  Alba  had 
exercised  over  the  thirty  colonies  of  Latium.  The  Ro¬ 
mans  sustained  long  wars  to  obtain  the  presidency  of 
the  sacrifice  at  the  ferice  Latince.  This  was  a  means 
of  acquiring  the  single  kind  of  superiority  and  dominion 
which  was  understood  at  that  time. 

they  built  at  home  a  temple  to  Liana;  they  obliged 
the  Latins  to  come  and  offer  sacrifices  there,  and  even 
attracted  the  Sabines  to  it.1  By  this  means  they  habit¬ 
uated  these  two  nations  to  share  with  them,  under  their 
presidency,  the  festivals,  the  prayers,  and  the  sacred  flesh 
of  the  victims.  Rome  thus  united  them  under  her  re¬ 
ligious  supremacy. 

Rome  was  the  only  city  that  understood  how  to 
augment  her  population  by  war.  The  Romans  pur¬ 
sued  a  policy  unknown  to  the  rest  of  the  Græco-Italian 
world;  they  annexed  all  that  they  conquered.  They 
brought  home  the  inhabitants  of  captured  cities,  and 
gradually  made  Romans  of  them.  At  the  same  time 
they  sent  colonists  into  the  conquered  countries,  and  in 

1  Livy,  !•  45.  Dionysius’.  IV.  48,  49. 


CfiAP.  IL 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


this  manner  spread  Rome  everywhere;  for  thei  col¬ 
onists,  while  forming  distinct  cities,  in  a  political  point 
of  view,  preserved  a  religious  community  with  the  me¬ 
tropolis;  and  this  was  enough  to  compel  the  colonies  to 
subordinate  their  policy  to  that  of  Rome,  to  obey  her, 
and  to  aid  her  in  all  her  wars. 

One  of  the  remarkable  peculiarities  of  the  policy  of 
Rome  was,  that  she  attracted  to  her  all  the  worships 
of  the  neighboring  cities.  She  obtained  possession  of 
a  Juno  from  Yeii,  a  Jupiter  from  Praeneste,  a  Minerva 
from  Falerii,  a  Juno  from  Lanuvium,  a  Venus  from  the 
Sainnites,  and  many  others  that  we  do  not  know.1 
“For  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Romans,”  says  one  of 
the  ancients,2  “to  take  home  the  religions  of  the  con¬ 
quered  cities  ;  sometimes  they  distributed  them  among 
the  gentes,  and  sometimes  they  gave  them  a  place  in 
their  national  religion.”  Montesquieu  praises  the  Ro¬ 
mans  for  a  refinement  of  skilful  policy  in  not  having 
imposed  their  gods  upon  the  conquered  nations.  But 
that  would  have  been  contrary  to  their  ideas,  and  to 
those  of  all  the  ancients.  Rome  conquered  the  gods 
of  the  vanquished,  and  did  not  give  them  hers.  She 
kept  her  protectors  for  herself,  and  even  labored  to  in¬ 
crease  the  number.  She  tried  to  possess  more  worships 
and  more  tutelary  gods  than  any  other  city. 

As,  moreover,  these  worships  and  gods  were,  for  the 
most  part,  taken  from  the  conquered,  Rome  was  placed 
by  them  in  religious  communion  with  all  the  surround¬ 
ing  nations.  The  ties  of  a  common  origin,  the  possession 
of  the  connubium ,  that  of  the  presidency  of  the  feriœ 
Latinœ ,  that  of  the  vanquished  gods,  the  right,  which 

1  Livy,  V.  21,  22;  VI.  29.  Ovid,  Fasti ,  III.  837,  843  Plu¬ 
tarch,  Parallel  of  Greek  and  Roman  Hist.,  75. 

*  Cincius,  cited  by  Arnobius,  Adv.  Gentes ,  III.  38. 


490 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V 


they  pretended  to  have,  of  sacrificing  at  Olympia  and 
at  Delphi,  were  so  many  means  by  which  the  Romans 
prepared  their  dominion.  Like  all  the  cities,  Rome  had 
her  municipal  religion,  the  source  of  her  patriotism  ; 
but  she  was  the  3nly  city  which  made  this  religion 
serve  for  her  aggrandizement.  Whilst  other  cities  were 
isolated  by  their  religion,  Rome  had  the  address  or  the 
good  fortune  to  employ  hers  to  draw  everything  to 
herself  and  to  dominate  over  all. 

3.  How  Rome  acquired  Empire  (R.  O.  350-140). 

Whilst  Rome  grew  thus  slowly  by  the  means  which 
religion  and  the  ideas  of  that  age  placed  at  her  disposal, 
a  series  of  social  and  political  changes  was  taking  place 
in  all  the  cities  and  in  Rome  itself,  transforming  at  the 
same  time  the  governments  of  men  and  their  ways  of 
thinking.  We  have  already  traced  this  revolution. 
What  is  important  to  remark  here  is,  that  it  coincides 
with  the  great  development  of  the  Roman  power. 

These  two  results,  which  took  place  at  the  same  time, 
were  not  without  influence  upon  each  other.  The  con¬ 
quests  of  Rome  would  not  have  been  so  easy  if  the  old 
municipal  spirit  had  not  been  every  where  "extinct  ;  and 
we  may  also  believe  that  the  municipal  system  would 
not  have  fallen  so  soon  if  the  Roman  conquest  had  not 
dealt  it  the  final  blow. 

In  the  midst  or  the  changes  which  took  place  in  in¬ 
stitutions,  in  manners,  in  religious  ideas,  and  in  laws, 
patriotism  itself  had  changed  its  nature;  and  this  is  one 
of  the  events  which  contributed  most  to  the  great  prog¬ 
ress  of  Rome.  We  have  described  this  sentiment  as  it 
was  in  the  first  ages  of  the  city.  It  was  a  part  of  re- 
ligion  ;  men  loveT  their  country  because  they  loved  its 


C*fAi\  •!. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


491 


pi  acting  gods,  because  they  there  found  a  prytaneum, 
a  holy  fire,  festivals,  prayers,  and  hymns,  and  because 
beyond  its  borders  they  no  longer  found  either  gods  or 
a  worship.  This  patriotism  was  faith  and  piety.  But 
when  the  domination  had  been  withdrawn  from  the 
sacerdotal  caste,  this  sort  of  patriotism  disappeared  with 
other  old  religious  notions.  Love  of  the  city  still  sur¬ 
vived,  but  it  took  a  new  form. 

Men  no  longer  loved  their  country  for  its  religion 
and  its  gods  ;  they  loved  it  only  for  its  laws,  for  its 
institutions,  and  for  the  rights  and  security  which  it 
afforded  its  members.  We  see  in  the  funeral  oration 
which  Thucydides  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Pericles  what 
the  reasons  are  that  Athens  was  loved  ;  they  are  be¬ 
cause  this  city  “  wishes  all  to  be  equal  before  the  law;” 
u  because  she  gives  men  liberty,  and  opens  the  ways  of 
honor  to  all  ;  because  she  maintains  public  order,  as¬ 
sures  authority  to  the  magistrates,  protects  the  weak, 
and  gives  to  all  spectacles  and  festivals,  which  are  the 
education  of  the  mind.”  And  the  orator  closes  by  say- 
in«\  “  This  is  why  our  warriors  have  died  heroically 
rather  than  allow  their  country  to  be  torn  from  them; 
this  is  why  those  who  survive  are  all  ready  to  suffer,  and 
to  devote  tnemseives  tor  it.”  Man,  therefore,  still  owes 
duties  to  the  city;  but  these  duties  do  not  flow  from 
the  same  principle  as  before.  He  still  gives  his  blood 
and  his  life,  but  it  is  no  longer  to  defend  his  national 
divinity  and  the  hearth  of  his  fathers;  it  is  to  defend 
the  institutions  which  he  enjoys,  and  the  advantages 
which  the  city  procures  him. 

Now,  this  new  patriotism  had  not  exactly  the  same 
effects  as  that  of  the  ancient  ages.  As  the  heart  was 
no  longer  attached  to  the  prytaneum,  to  the  protecting 
gods,  and  to  the  sacred  soil,  but  simply  to  the  institu 


492 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  ** 


tions  and  the  laws,  —  and  as,  moreover,  the  lattei,  m 
the  state  of  instability  in  which  all  the  cities  then  touud 
themselves,  changed  frequently,  —  patriotism  became  a 
variable  and  inconsistent  sentiment,  which  depended 
upon  circumstances,  and  which  was  subject  to  the  same 
fluctuations  as  the  government  itself.  One  loved  his 
country  only  as  much  as  he  loved  the  form  of  govern¬ 
ment  that  prevailed  there  for  the  moment  ;  and  he 
who  found  its  iaws  bad  had  no  longer  anything  to  at¬ 
tach  him  to  it. 

Municipal  patriotism  thus  became  weakened  and  died 
out  in  men’s  minds.  Every  man’s  opinion  was  more 
precious  to  him  than  his  country,  and  the  triumph  of 
his  faction  became  much  dearer  to  him  than  the  gran¬ 
deur  or  glory  of  his  city.  Each  one,  if  he  did  not  find 
in  his  own  city  the  institutions  that  he  loved,  began  to 
prefer  some  other  city,  where  he  saw  these  institutions 
established.  Men  then  began  to  emigrate  more  freely, 
and  feared  exile  less.  What  did  it  matter  if  they  were 
excluded  from  the  prytaneum  and  the  lustral  water  ? 
They  thought  little  now  of  the  protecting  gods,  and  were 
easily  accustomed  to  live  away  fivm  their  country. 

From  this  to  taking  up  arms  against  it  was  not  a 
gTeat  step.  Men  joined  a  hostile  city  to  make  their 
party  victorious  in  their  own.  Of  two  Argives,  one 
preferred  an  aristocratic  government  ;  he  preferred 
Sparta  to  Argos:  the  other  preferred  democracy;  he 
preferred  Athens.  Neither  cared  a  great  deal  for  the. 
independence  of  his  own  city,  and  was  not  much  averse 
to  becoming  the  subject  of  another  city,  provided  that 
city  sustained  his  faction  in  Argos.  It  is  clear,  from 
Thucydides  and  Xenophon,  that  it  was  this  disposition 
ot  men’s  minds  that  brought  on  and  sustained  the  Pelo¬ 
ponnesian  war.  At  Platæa  the  rich  were  of  the  Theban 


'JHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


49b 


and  Lacedemonian  party,  the  democrats  were  m  favor 
of  Athens.  At  Corcyra  the  popular  faction  were  for 
Athens,  and  the  aristocracy  for  Sparta.1  Athens  had 
allies  in  all  the  cities  of  Peloponnesus,  and  Sparta  had 
them  in  all  the  Ionian  cities.  Thucydides  and  Xeno¬ 
phon  agree  in  saying  that  there  was  not  a  single  city 
where  the  people  were  not  favorable  to  the  Athenians, 
and  the  aristocracy  to  the  Spartans/  This  war  rep¬ 
resents  a  general  effort  which  the  Greeks  made  to 
establish  everywhere  a  single  constitution  with  the 
hegemony  of  a  city;  but  a  part  desired  an  aristocracy 
under  the  protection  of  Sparta,  while  others  favored  a 
democracy  with  the  support  of  Athens.  It  was  the 
same  in  Philip’s  time.  The  aristocratic  party,  in  all 
the  cities,  desired  the  domination  of  Macedon.  In 
Philopœmen’s  time  the  cases  were  reversed,  but  the  sen¬ 
timents  remained  the  same  ;  the  popular  party  accepted 
the  empire  of  Macedon,  and  all  who  were  in  favor  of 
the  aristocracy  joined  the  Achæan  league.  Thus  the 
wishes  and  the  affections  of  men  no  longer  had  the  city 
as  the  object.  There  were  few  Greeks  who  were  not 
ready  to  sacrifice  municipal  independence  in  order  to 
obtain  the  constitution  which  they  preferred. 

As  to  honest  and  scrupulous  men,  the  perpetual 
dissensions  which  they  saw  disgusted  them  with  the 
municipal  system.  They  could  not  love  a  form  of 
society,  where  it  was  necessary  to  fight  every  day, 
where  the  rich  and  the  poor  were  always  at  war,  and 
where  they  saw  popular  violence  and  aristocratic  ven 
geance  alternate  without  end.  They  wished  to  escape 
from  a  régime  which,  after  having  produced  real  gran- 


1  Thucydides,  II.  2;  III.  65,  70;  V.  29,  7G. 
a  Thucydides,  III.  47.  Xenophon,  Hell .,  VI.  3 


494 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


dour,  no  longer  produced  anything  but  suffering  and 
hatred.  They  began  to  feel  the  necessity  of  abandon¬ 
ing  the  municipal  system,  and  of  arriving  at  some  other 
form  of  government  than  the  city.  Many  men  dreamed 
at  last  of  establishing  above  the  cities  a  sort  of  sover¬ 
eign  power,  which  should  look  to  the  maintenance  of 
order,  and  compel  those  turbulent  little  societies  to  live 
in  peace.  It  was  thus  that  Phocion,  a  good  citizen,  ad¬ 
vised  his  compatriots  to  accept  the  authority  of  Philip, 
and  promised  them,  at  this  price,  concord  and  security. 

In  Italy  affairs  were  in  much  the  same  condition  as 
in  Greece.  The  cities  of  Latium,  of  the  Sabines,  and  of 
Etruria  were  distracted  by  the  same  revolutions  and  the 
same  struggles,  and  love  of  the  city  disappeared.  As  in 
Greece,  every  man  was  ready  to  join  a  foreign  city,  in 
order  to  make  his  opinions  and  interests  prevail  in 
his  own. 

These  dispositions  of  mind  made  the  fortune  of  the 
Romans.  They  everywhere  supported  the  aristocracy  ; 
everywhere,  too,  the  aristocracy  were  their  allies.  Let 
us  take  a  few  examples.  The  Claudian  gens  left  the 
Sabines  because  Roman  institutions  pleased  them  bet¬ 
ter  than  those  of  their  own  country.  At  the  same 
epoch  many  Latin  families  emigrated  to  Rome,  because 
they  dh1  not  like  the  democratic  government  of  Latium, 
and  ^ie  Romans  had  just  established  the  reign  of  the 
patricians.1  At  Ardea,  the  aristocracy  and  the  plebs 
being  at  enmity,  the  plebs  called  the  Yolscians  to  their 
aid,  and  the  aristocracy  delivered  the  city  to  the  Ro¬ 
mans.2  Etruria  was  full  of  dissensions;  Yeii  had  over 
thrown  her  aristocratic  government;  the  Romans  at¬ 
tacked  this  city,  and  the  other  Etruscan  cities,  where  tho 


1  Dionysius,  VI.  2. 


*  Livy,  IV.  9,  10. 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUE8T. 


49; 


sacerdotal  aristocracy  still  held  sway,  refused  to  aid 
the  Veientines.  The  legend  adds  that  in  this  war  the 
Romans  carried  away  a  Yeientine  aruspex,  and  made 
him  deliver  them  an  oracle  that  assured  them  the  vic¬ 
tory.  Does  not  this  legend  signify  that  the  Etruscan 
priests  delivered  the  city  to  the  Romans? 

Later,  when  Capua  revolted  against  Rome,  it  was 
remarked  that  the  knights  —  that  is  to  say,  the  aristo¬ 
cratic  body  —  took  no  part  in  that  insurrection.1  In  313, 
the  cities  of  Ausona,  Sora,  Minturnæ,  and  Yescia  were 
delivered  to  the  Romans  by  the  aristocratic  party.2 
When  the  Etruscans  were  seen  to  form  a  coalition 
against  Rome,  it  was  because  popular  governments  had 
been  established  among  them.  A  single  city  —  that  of 
Arretium  —  refused  to  enter  this  coalition  ;  and  this 
was  because  the  aristocracy  still  prevailed  in  Arretium. 
When  Hannibal  was  in  Italy,  all  the  cities  were  agi¬ 
tated  ;  but  it  was  not  a  question  of  independence.  In 
every  city  the  aristocracy  were  for  Rome,  and  the  plebs 
for  the  Carthaginians.3 

The  manner  in  which  Rome  was  governed  will  ex¬ 
plain  this  constant  preference  which  the  aristocracy 
entertained  for  it.  The  series  of  revolutions  continued 
as  in  other  cities,  but  more  slowly.  In  509,  when  the 
Latin  cities  already  had  tyrants,  a  patrician  reaction 
had  succeeded  at  Rome.  The  democracy  rose  after¬ 
wards,  but  gradually,  and  with  much  moderation  and 
self-restraint.  The  Roman  government  was,  therefore, 
for  a  longer  time  aristocratic  than  any  other,  and  was 
long  the  hope  of  the  aristocratic  party. 

The  democracy,  it  is  true,  finally  carried  the  day  in 

1  Livy,  VIII.  11.  *  Livy,  IX.  24,  25;  X.  1. 

*  Livy,  XXI 1 1.  13,  14,  39;  XXIV.  2,  3. 


496 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V. 


Rome;  but  even  then  the  proceedings,  and  what  one 
might  call  the  artifices,  of  the  government  remained 
aristocratic.  In  the  comitia  centuriata  the  votes  were 
\listributed  according  to  property.  It  was  not  alto¬ 
gether  different  with  the  comitia  tributa  :  legally,  no 
distinction  of  wealth  was  admitted  there  ;  in  fact,  the 
poor  class,  being  included  in  the  four  city  tribes,  had 
but  four  votes  to  oppose  to  the  thirty-one  of  the  class 
of  proprietors.  Besides,  nothing  was  more  quiet,  ordi¬ 
narily,  than  these  assemblies;  no  one  spoke  there,  ex¬ 
cept  the  president,  or  some  one  whom  he  called  upon. 
Orators  were  little  heard  there,  and  there  was  little 
discussion.  More  generally  there  was  simply  a  vote 
of  yes  or  no.  and  a  count  of  the  votes.  This  last  oper¬ 
ation,  being  very  complicated,  demanded  much  time 
and  patience.  Add  to  this  that  the  senate  was  not 
renewed  annually,  as  in  the  democratic  cities  of  Greece  ; 
it  sat  for  life,  and  very  nearly  recruited  itself.  It  was 
really  an  oligarchic  body. 

The  manners  of  the  Romans  were  still  more  aristo¬ 
cratic  than  their  institutions.  The  senators  had  seats 
reserved  at  the  theatre.  The  rich  alone  served  in  the 
cavalry  ;  the  grades  of  the  army  were  in  great  part 
reserved  for  the  young  men  of  the  great  families. 
Scipio  was  not  sixteen  years  old  when  he  already  com¬ 
manded  a  squadron. 

The  rule  of  the  rich  class  was  kept  up  longer  at 
Rome  than  in  any  other  city.  This  was  due  to  two 
causes.  One  was,  that  Rome  made  great  conquests,  and 
the  profits  of  these  went  to  the  class  that  was  already 
rich  ;  all  lands  taken  from  the  conquered  were  possessed 
by  them  ;  they  seized  upon  the  commerce  of  the  con¬ 
quered  countries,  and  joined  with  it  the  benefits  derived 
from  the  collection  of  duties  and  the  administration  of  the 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


497 


provinces.  These  families,  thus  increasing  their  vi  ealth 
with  every  generation,  became  immeasurably  opulent, 
and  each  one  of  them  was  a  power,  compared  with  the 
people.  The  other  cause  was,  that  the  Roman,  even 
the  poorest,  had  an  innate  respect  for  wealth.  Long 
after  real  clientship  had  disappeared,  it  was,  in  a  certain 
sense,  resuscitated  under  the  form  of  a  homage  paid  to 
great  fortunes;  and  it  became  a  custom  for  the  poor  to 
go  every  morning  to  salute  the  rich. 

It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  struggle  be¬ 
tween  rich  and  poor  was  not  seen  at  Rome,  as  well  as 
in  other  cities;  but  it  commenced  only  in  the  time  of 
the  Gracchi,  —  that  is  to  say,  after  the  conquest  was 
almost  achieved.  Besides,  this  struggle  never  had  at 
Rome  that  character  of  violence  which  it  assumed 
everywhere  else.  The  lower  orders  of  Rome  never 
ardently  coveted  riches.  They  aided  the  Gracchi  in  a 
lukewarm  manner  ;  they  refused  to  believe  that  these 
reformers  were  working  for  them,  and  abandoned  them 
at  the  decisive  moment.  The  agrarian  laws,  so  often 
presented  to  the  rich  as  a  menace,  always  left  the  peo¬ 
ple  quite  indifferent,  and  agitated  them  only  on  the 
surface.  It  is  clear  that  they  were  not  very  eager  to 
possess  lands  ;  for,  if  they  were  offered  a  share  in  the 
public  lands,  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  domain  of  the 
state,  —  they  at  least  never  had  a  thought  of  despoiling 
the  rich  of  their  property.  Partly  from  inveterate  re¬ 
spect,  and  partly  from  a  habit  of  doing  nothing,  they 
loved  to  live  by  the  side  of  the  rich,  and  as  it  were  in 
their  shadow. 

The  rich  class  had  the  wisdom  to  admit  to  its  circle 
the  most  considerable  families  of  the  subject  and  allied 
cities.  All  who  were  rich  in  Italy  came  gradually  to 
form  the  rich  class  cf  Rome.  This  body  continued  to 

32 


498 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  ▼. 


increase  in  importance,  and  became  the  master  of  the 
state.  The  rich  alone  filled  the  magistracies,  because 
these  cost  a  great  sum  to  purchase.  They  alone  com¬ 
posed  the  senate,  because  it  required  a  very  large  prop¬ 
erty  to  be  a  senator.  Thus  we  see  this  strange  fact, 
that,  in  spite  of  democratic  laws,  a  nobility  was  formed, 
and  that  the  people,  who  were  all-powerful,  suffered  this 
nobility  to  take  rank  above  them,  and  never  made  any 
real  opposition  to  it. 

Rome,  therefore,  from  the  third  to  the  second  cen¬ 
tury  before  our  era,  was  the  most  aristocratically  gov¬ 
erned  city  that  existed  in  Italy  or  Greece.  Finally,  let 
us  remark  that,  if  the  senate  was  obliged  to  manage 
the  multitude  on  home  questions,  it  was  absolute  master 
so  far  as  concerned  foreign  affairs.  It  was  the  senate 
that  received  ambassadors,  that  concluded  alliances, 
that  distributed  the  provinces  and  the  legions,  that 
ratified  the  acts  of  the  generals,  that  determined  the 
conditions  allowed  to  the  conquered  —  all  acts  which 
everywhere  else  belonged  to  the  popular  assembly. 
Foreigners,  in  their  relations  with  Rome,  had,  there¬ 
fore,  nothing  to  do  with  the  people.  The  senate  alone 
spoke,  and  the  idea  was  held  out  that  the  people  had  no 
power.  This  was  the  opinion  which  a  Greek  expressed 
to  Flaminius.  “In  your  country,”  said  he,  “riches 
alone  govern,  and  all  else  is  submissive  to  it.”  1 

As  a  result  of  this,  in  all  the  cities  the  aristocracy 

% 

turned  their  eyes  towards  Rome,  counted  upon  it, 
looked  to  it  for  protection,  and  followed  its  fortunes. 
This  seemed  so  much  the  more  natural,  as  Rome  was 
a  foreign  city  to  nobody;  Sabines,  Latins,  and  Etrus¬ 
cans  saw  in  it  a  Sabine,  Latin,  or  Etruscan  city,  and  the 
Greeks  recognized  Greeks  in  it 


Livy,  XXXIV.  t* 


//hap.  ii. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


499 


As  soon  as  the  Romans  appeared  in  Greece,  the 
aristocracy  surrendered  to  them.  Hardly  anybody 
thought  then  that  they  were  choosing  between  inde¬ 
pendence  and  subjection  ;  for  most  men  the  question 
was  only  between  aristocracy  and  the  popular  party. 
In  all  the  cities  the  latter  was  for  Philip,  Antiochus, 
or  Perseus,  and  the  former  for  Rome.  We  may  see 
in  Polybius  and  Livy  that  when  Argos  opened  her 
gates,  in  B.  C.  198,  to  the  Macedonians,  the  people  had 
the  sway  there  ;  that  the  next  year,  it  was  the  party 
of  the  rich  that  gave  up  Opuntii  to  the  Romans  ;  that, 
among  the  Acarnanians,  the  aristocracy  made  a  treaty 
of  alliance  with  Rome,  and  that  in  the  following  year 
this  treaty  was  broken,  because,  in  the  interval,  the 
people  had  recovered  the  ascendency  ;  that  Thebes  was 
allied  with  Philip  so  long  as  the  popular  party  had  the 
power,  and  sided  with  Rome  the  moment  the  aristoc¬ 
racy  became  the  masters  ;  that  at  Athens,  at  Deme¬ 
trius,  and  at  Phocæa  the  populace  were  hostile  to  the 
Romans  ;  that  Nabis,  the  democratic  tyrant,  made  war 
upon  them  ;  that  the  Achaean  league,  as  long  as  it  was 
governed  by  the  aristocracy,  was  favorable  to  them  ; 
that  men  like  Philopœmen  and  Polybius  desired  na¬ 
tional  independence,  but  preferred  Roman  rule  to 
democracy  ;  that  in  the  Achaean  league  itself  there 
came  a  moment  when  the  popular  party  rose  in  its 
turn,  and  from  that  moment  the  league  was  the  enemy 
of  Rome  ;  that  Diaeus  and  Critolaus  were  at  the  same 
time  the  chiefs  of  the  popular  faction  and  the  generals 
of  the  league  against  the  Romans,  and  that  they  fought 
bravely  at  Scarphea  and  at  Leucopetra,  less  perhaps 
for  the  independence  of  Greece  than  for  the  triumph 
of  democracy. 

Such  facts  show  clearly  enough  how  Rome,  without 


500 


MUNICtrAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


any  very  great  efforts,  obtained  the  empire.  The  mu¬ 
nicipal  spirit  gradually  disappeared.  The  love  of 
independence  became  a  very  rare  sentiment,  and  all 
hearts  were  entirely  enlisted  in  the  interests  and  pas 
sions  of  parties.  Insensibly  men  forgot  the  city.  The 
barriers  which  had  previously  separated  cities,  and  had 
made  of  them  so  many  distinct  little  worlds,  whose 
horizons  bounded  the  wishes  and  thoughts  of  every  one, 
fell  one  after  another.  In  all  Italy  and  in  all  Greece, 
only  two  groups  of  men  were  distinguished  :  on  one 
hand  was  an  aristocratic  class,  on  the  other  a  popular 
party.  One  party  labored  for  the  supremacy  of  Rome, 
the  other  opposed  it.  The  aristocracy  were  victorious, 
and  Rome  acquired  the  empire. 


4.  Rome  everywhere  destroys  the  Municipal  System . 

The  institutions  of  the  ancient  city  had  been  weak¬ 
ened,  and  almost  exhausted,  by  a  series  of  revolutions. 
One  of  the  first  results  of  the  Roman  dominion  was  to 
complete  their  destruction,  and  to  efface  what  still  re¬ 
mained  of  them.  This  we  can  see  by  observing  the 
condition  into  which  the  nations  fell  as  they  became 
subject  to  Rome. 

We  must  first  banish  from  our  minds  all  the  customs 
of  modern  politics,  and  not  picture  to  ourselves  the 
nations  entering  the  Roman  state,  one  after  another, 
as  in  our  day  provinces  are  annexed  to  a  kingdom, 
which,  on  receiving  these  new  members,  extends  its 
boundaries.  The  Roman  state  ( civitas  Romand)  was 
not  enlarged  by  conquests;  it  never  included  any  fam¬ 
ilies  except  those  that  figured  in  the  religious  ceremony 
of  the  census.  The  Roman  territory  ( ager  Romanics) 
never  increased.  It  remained  enclosed  within  the 


OHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


501 


immutable  limits  which  the  kings  had  traced  for  it, 
and  which  the  ceremony  of  the  Ambarvalia  sanctified 
every  year.  What  increased  with  every  conquest  was 
the  dominion  of  Rome  ( imperium  Romanum). 

So  long  as  the  republic  lasted,  it  never  entered  the 
mind  of  any  one  that  the  Romans  and  the  other  peo¬ 
ples  could  form  a  single  nation.  Rome  might,  indeed, 
receive  a  few  of  the  conquered,  allow  them  to  live 
within  her  walls,  and  transform  them,  in  the  course  of 
time,  into  Romans;  but  she  could  not  assimilate  a 
whole  foreign  people  to  her  people,  an  entire  territory 
to  her  territory.  Still  this  was  not  peculiar  to  the 
policy  of  Rome,  but  a  principle  that  held  through  all 
antiquity  ;  it  was  a  principle  from  which  Rome  would 
sooner  have  departed  than  any  other  city,  but  from 
which  she  could  not  entirely  free  herself.  Whenever, 
therefore,  a  people  was  conquered,  it  did  not  enter  the 
Roman  state;  it  entered  only  the  Roman  dominion. 
It  was  not  united  to  Rome,  as  provinces  are  to-day 
united  to  a  capital  ;  between  other  nations  and  itself 
Rome  knew  only  two  kinds  of  connection  —  subjection 
or  alliance. 

From  this  it  would  seem  that  municipal  institutions 
must  have  subsisted  among  the  conquered,  and  that  the 
world  must  have  been  an  assemblage  of  cities  distinct 
from  each  other,  and  having  at  their  head  a  ruling  city. 
But  it  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  effect  of  the 
Roman  conquest  was  to  work  in  every  city  a  complete 
transformation. 

On  one  side  were  the  subjects  dedititii ,  or  those 
who,  having  pronounced  the  formula  of  the  deditio , 
had  delivered  to  the  Roman  people  “their  persons, 
their  walls,  their  lands,  their  waters,  their  houses,  their 
temples,  and  their  gods.” 


502 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  f, 


They  had  therefore  renounced,  not  only  their  muni¬ 
cipal  government,  but  all  that  appertained  to  it  among 
the  ancients,  —  that  is  to  say,  their  religion  and  their 
private  law.  From  that  moment  these  men  no  longer 
formed  a  political  body  among  themselves;  nothing 
that  goes  to  make  up  a  regular  society  remained  to 
them.  Their  city  ( urbs )  might  remain  standing,  but 
the  state  ( civitas )  had  perished.  If  they  continued  to 
live  together,  they  lived  without  institutions,  laws,  or 
magistrates.  The  arbitrary  authority  of  a  prœfectus 
sent  by  Rome  maintained  material  order  among  them.1 
On  the  other  hand  were  the  allies — fcederati ,  or  socii. 
They  were  less  cruelly  treated.  The  day  on  which 
they  entered  the  Roman  dominion,  it  had  been  stipu¬ 
lated  that  they  should  preserve  their  municipal  govern¬ 
ment,  and  should  remain  organized  into  cities.  They 
therefore  continued  to  have  in  every  city  a  constitution, 
magistracies,  a  senate,  a  prytaneum,  laws,  and  judges. 
The  city  was  supposed  to  be  independent,  and  seemed 
to  have  no  other  relations  with  Rome  than  those  of  an 
ally  with  its  ally.  Still,  in  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
which  had  been  drawn  up  at  the  time  of  the  conquest, 
Rome  had  been  careful  to  insert  these  words:  Majes- 
tatem populi  Romani  comiter  conservator  These  terms 
established  the  dependence  of  the  allied  city  upon  the 
retropolitan  city,  and  as  they  were  very  vague,  it  hap¬ 
pened  that  the  measure  of  this  dependence  was  always 
in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  sponger.  These 
cities,  which  were  called  free,  received  orders  from 
Rome,  obeyed  proconsuls,  and  paid  taxes  to  the  col- 

1  Livy,  I.  38;  VII.  31;  IX.  20;  XXVI.  16;  XXVIII.  34. 
Cicero,  De  Lege  Agr .,  I.  6;  II.  32.  Fealus,  v.  Prcefecturce. 

•  Cicero,  Pro  Balbo,  16. 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


t>03 


lectors  of  the  revenue.  Their  magistrates  rendered 
their  accounts  to  the  governor  of  the  province,  who 
also  heard  the  appeals  from  the  judges.1  Now,  such 
was  the  nature  of  the  municipal  system  among  the  an¬ 
cients  that  it  needed  complete  independence,  or  it 
ceased  to  exist.  Between  the  maintenance  of  the  in 
stitutions  of  the  city  and  their  subordination  to  a  for¬ 
eign  power,  there  was  a  contradiction  which  perhaps 
does  not  clearly  appear  to  the  eyes  of  the  moderns,  but 
which  must  have  struck  every  man  of  that  period.  Mu* 
nicipal  liberty  and  the  government  of  Rome  were  ir¬ 
reconcilable;  the  first  could  be  only  an  appearance,  a 
falsehood,  an  amusement  calculated  to  divert  the  minds 
of  men.  Each  of  those  cities  sent,  almost  every  year,  a 
deputation  to  Rome,  and  its  most  minute  and  most  pri¬ 
vate  affairs  were  regulated  by  the  senate.  They  still 
had  their  municipal  magistrates,  their  archons,  and 
their  strategi,  freely  elected  by  themselves;  but  the 
archon  no  longer  had  any  other  duty  than  to  inscribe 
his  name  on  the  registers  for  the  purpose  of  marking 
the  year,  and  the  strategus,  in  earlier  times  the  chief 
of  the  army  and  of  the  state,  now  had  no  other  care 
than  to  keep  the  streets  in  order,  and  inspect  the  mar¬ 
kets.2 

Municipal  institutions,  therefore,  perished  among  the 
nations  that  were  called  allies  as  well  as  among  those 
that  bore  the  name  of  subjects;  there  was  only  this 
difference,  that  the  first  preserved  the  exterior  forms. 
Indeed,  the  city,  as  antiquity  had  understood  it,  was  no 
longer  seen  anywhere,  except  within  the  walls  of  Rome. 

1  Livy,  XLY.  18.  Cicero,  ad  Attic.,  YI.  1,  2.  Appian,  Civil 
Wars,  I.  102.  Tacitus,  XV.  45. 

2  Philostratus,  Lives  of  the  Sophists ,  I.  23.  Boeckh.,  Gory. 
Inscr.,  passim. 


004 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


Then,  too,  the  Romans,  while  everywhere  destroying 
the  municipal  system,  substituted  nothing  in  its  place. 
To  the  people  whose  institutions  they  took  away,  they 
did  not  give  their  own  instead.  The  Romans  never 
thought  of  creating  new  institutions  for  their  use;  they 
neve i  made  a  constitution  lor  the  people  of  their  em¬ 
pire,  and  did  not  understand  how  to  establish  fixed 
rules  for  their  government.  Even  the  authority  which 
Rome  exercised  over  the  cities  had  no  regularity.  As 
they  made  no  part  of  her  state,  or  of  her  city,  she  had 
no  legal  power  over  them.  Her  subjects  were  stran¬ 
gers  to  her  —  a  reason  why  she  exercised  this  irregular 
and  unlimited  power  which  ancient  municipal  law  al¬ 
lowed  citizens  to  exercise  towards  foreigners  and  ene¬ 
mies.  It  was  on  this  principle  that  the  Roman  admin¬ 
istration  was  a  long  time  regulated,  and  this  is  the 
manner  in  which  it  was  carried  on. 

Rome  sent  one  of  her  citizens  into  a  country.  She 
made  that  country  the  province  of  this  man,  —  that  is 
to  say,  his  charge,  his  own  care,  his  personal  affair; 
this  was  the  sense  of  the  word  provincia.  At  the  same 
time  she  conferred  upon  this  citizen  the  imperium ; 
this  signified  that  she  gave  up  in  his  favor,  for  a  deter¬ 
mined  time,  the  sovereignty  which  she  held  over  the 
country.  From  that  time  this  citizen  represented  in 
his  person  all  the  rights  of  the  republic,  and  by  this 
means  he  was  an  absolute  master.  He  fixed  the  amount 
of  taxes;  he  exercised  the  military  power,  and  admin¬ 
istered  justice.  His  relations  with  the  subjects,  or  the 
allies,  were  limited  by  no  constitution.  When  he  sat 
in  his  judgment-seat,  he  pronounced  decisions  accord¬ 
ing  to  his  own  will  ;  no  law  controlled  him,  neither  the 
piovincial  laws,  as  he  was  a  Roman,  nor  the  Roman 
laws,  as  he  passed  judgment  upon  provincials.  If  there 


CHAP.  Iï. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


505 


were  laws  between  him  and  those  that  he  governed,  he 
had  to  make  them  himself,  for  he  alone  could  bind  him¬ 
self.  Therefore  the  imperium  with  which  he  was 
clothed  included  the  legislative  power  ;  and  thus  it 
happened  that  the  governors  had  the  right,  and  estab¬ 
lished  the  custom,  on  entering  the  provinces,  of  pub¬ 
lishing  a  code  of  laws,  which  they  called  their  Edict, 
and  to  which  they  morally  promised  to  conform.  But 
as  the  governors  were  changed  annually,  these  codes 
changed  every  year,  for  the  reason  that  the  law  had  its 
source  only  in  the  will  of  the  man  who  was  for  the 
time  invested  with  the  imperium.  This  principle  was 
so  rigorously  applied  that,  when  a  judgment  had  been 
pronounced  by  a  governor,  but  had  not  been  entirely 
executed  at  the  time  of  his  departure  from  the  province, 
the  arrival  of  his  successor  completely  annulled  this 
judgment,  and  the  proceedings  were  recommenced.1 

Such  was  the  omnipotence  of  the  governor.  He  was 
the  living  law.  As  to  invoking  the  justice  of  Rome 
against  his  acts  of  violence  or  his  crimes,  the  provin¬ 
cials  could  not  do  this  unless  they  could  find  a  Roman 
citizen  who  would  act  as  their  patron  ;2  for,  as  to  them¬ 
selves,  they  had  no  right  to  demand  the  protection  of 
the  laws  of  the  city,  or  to  appeal  to  its  courts.  They 
were  foreigners;  the  judicial  and  official  language  called 
them  peregrini  ;  all  that  the  law  said  of  the  hostis  con¬ 
tinued  to  be  applied  to  them. 

The  legal  situation  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  empire 
appears  clearly  in  the  writings  of  the  Roman  juris¬ 
consults.  We  there  see  that  the  people  are  considered 
as  no  longer  having  their  own  laws,  and  as  not  yet  hav- 
iug  those  of  Rome.  For  them,  therefore,  the  law 


Gaius,  IV.  103,  105. 


1  Cicero,  De  Orat .,  I.  9. 


506 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V 


did  not  exist  in  any  manner.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  jurisconsult,  a  provincial  was  neither  husband  nor 
father, —  that  is  to  say,  the  law  recognized  neither  his 
marital  nor  his  paternal  authority.  For  him  property 
did  not  exist.  It  was  a  double  impossibility  for  him  to 
become  a  proprietor;  it  was  impossible  by  reason  of 
his  personal  condition,' because  he  was  not  a  Roman 
citizen,  and  impossible  by  reason  of  the  condition  of  the 
land,  because  it  was  not  Roman  territory,  and  the  law 
admitted  the  complete  right  of  ownership  only  within 
the  limits  of  the  ager  Romanus.  For  the  lawyers 
taught  that  the  land  in  the  provinces  was  never  private 
property,  and  that  men  could  have  only  the  possession 
and  usufruct  thereof.1  Now,  what  they  said  in  the  sec¬ 
ond  century  of  our  era  of  the  provincial  territory  had 
been  equally  true  of  the  Italian  soil  before  Italy  ob¬ 
tained  the  Roman  franchise,  as  we  shall  presently  see. 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  people,  as  fast  as  they  en¬ 
tered  the  Roman  empire,  lost  their  municipal  religion, 
their  government,  and  their  private  law.  We  can  easi¬ 
ly  believe  that  Rome  softened  in  practice  whatever  was 
destructive  in  this  subjection.  We  see,  indeed,  that, 
though  the  Roman  laws  did  not  recognize  the  paternal 
authority  in  the  subject,  they  allowed  this  authority 
still  to  subsist  in  practice.  If  they  did  not  permit  a 
certain  man  to  call  himself  a  proprietor  of  the  soil,  they 
still  allowed  him  the  possession  of  it;  he  cultivated  his 
land,  sold  it,  and  devised  it  by  will.  It  was  not  said 
that  this  land  was  his,  but  they  said  it  was  as  good  as 
his,  pro  suo.  It  was  not  his  property,  dominium,  but  it 
was  among  his  goods,  in  bonis  2  Rome  thus  invented 

1  Gaius,  II.  7.  Cicero,  Pro  Flacco ,  32. 

*  Gaius,  I.  52;  II.  5,  6,  7. 


chap.  n. 


THE  ROMAX  CONQUEST. 


50T 


for  the  benefit  of  the  subject  a  multitude  of  turns  and 
artifices  of  language.  Indeed,  the  Roman  genius,  if  its 
municipal  traditions  prevented  it  from  making  laws  for 
the  conquered,  could  not  suffer  society  to  fall  into  dis¬ 
solution.  In  principle  the  provincials  were  placed  out¬ 
side  the  laws,  while  in  fact  they  lived  as  if  they  had 
them  ;  but  with  the  exception  of  this,  and  the  tolerance 
of  the  conquerors,  all  the  institutions  of  the  vanquished 
and  all  their  laws  were  allowed  to  disappear.  The 
Roman  empire  presented,  for  several,  generations,  this 
singular  spectacle:  A  single  city  remained  intact,  pre¬ 
serving  its  institutions  and  its  laws,  while  all  the  rest 

—  that  is  to  say,  more  than  a  hundred  millions  of  souls 

—  either  had  no  kind  of  laws,  or  had  such  as  were  not 
recognized  by  the  ruling  city.  The  world  then  was 
not  precisely  in  a  state  of  chaos,  but  force,  arbitrary 
rule,  and  convention,  in  default  of  laws  and  principles, 
alone  sustained  society. 

Such  was  the  effect  of  the  Roman  conquest  on  the 
nations  that  successively  became  its  prey.  Of  the  city 
everything  went  to  ruin;  religion  first,  then  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  and  finally  private  law.  All  the  municipal 
institutions,  already  for  a  long  time  shaken,  were  finally 
overthrown  and  destroyed  ;  but  no  regular  society,  no 
system  of  government,  replaced  at  once  what  had  dis¬ 
appeared.  There  was  a  period  of  stagnation  between 
the  moment  when  men  saw  the  municipal  governments 
issolve  and  that  in  which  another  form  of  society  ap¬ 
peared.  The  nation  did  not  at  once  succeed  the  city,  fov 
the  Roman  empire  in  no  wise  resembled  a  nation,  it 
was  a  confused  multitude,  where  there  was  rea^  order 
only  in  one  central  point,  and  where  all  the  rest  en 
dyed  only  a  factitious  and  transitory  order,  and  ob 
Gained  this  only  at  the  price  of  obedience.  The  coi 


508 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  Y 


quered  nations  succeeded  in  establishing  themselves  as 
an  organized  body  only  by  conquering  in  their  turn  the 
rights  and  institutions  which  Rome  was  inclined  to 
keep  for  itself.  In  order  to  this  they  had  to  enter  the 
Roman  city,  make  a  place  for  themselves  there,  press 
forward,  and  transform  that  city  also,  in  order  to  make 
of  themselves  and  Rome  one  body.  This  was  a  long 
and  difficult  task. 

5.  The  Conquered  Nations  successively  enter  the 

Roman  City . 

We  have  seen  how  deplorable  was  the  condition  of 
the  Roman  subject,  and  how  the  condition  of  the  citi¬ 
zen  was  to  be  envied.  Not  vanity  alone,  but  the  most 
real  and  dearest  interests  had  to  suffer.  Whoever  was 
not  a  Roman  citizen  was  not  reputed  to  be  either  a 
husband  or  a  father;  legally  he  could  be  neither  pro¬ 
prietor  nor  heir.  Such  was  the  value  of  the  title  of 
Roman  citizen,  that  without  it  one  was  outside  the 
law,  and  with  it  he  entered  regular  society.  It  hap¬ 
pened,  therefore,  that  this  title  became  the  object  of  the 
most  lively  desires  of  men.  The  Latin,  the  Italian,  the 
Greek,  and,  later,  the  Spaniard  and  the  Gaul,  aspired 
to  be  Roman  citizens  —  the  single  means  of  having 
rights  and  of  counting  for  something.  All,  one  after 
another,  nearly  in  the  order  in  which  they  entered  the 
Roman  empire,  labored  to  enter  the  Roman  city,  and, 
after  long  efforts,  succeeded.  This  slow  introduction 
into  the  Roman  state  is  the  last  act  in  the  long  history 
of  the  social  transformations  of  the  ancients.  To  ob¬ 
serve  this  great  event  in  all  its  successive  phases,  we 
must  examine  its  commencement,  in  the  fourth  century 
before  our  era. 


s 


CH  Al*.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


509 


Latium  had  been  conquered  ;  of  the  forty  small  peo¬ 
ples  who  inhabited  it,  Rome  had  exterminated  half. 
She  had  despoiled  some  of  their  lands,  and  had  left  to 
others  the  title  of  allies.  In  B.  C.  340  the  latter  per¬ 
ceived  that  the  alliance  was  entirely  to  their  detriment, 
that  they  were  expected  to  obey  in  everything,  and  that 
they  were  required  every  year  to  lavish  their  blood  and 
money  for  the  sole  benefit  of  Rome.  They  formed  a 
coalition  ;  their  chief,  Annins,  thus  stated  their  demands 
in  the  Roman  senate:  “Give  us  equality.  Let  us  have 
the  same  laws;  let  us  form  but  a  single  state  —  una 
civitas  /  let  us  have  but  a  single  name;  let  us  all  alike 
be  called  Romans.”  Annius  thus  announced,  in  the 
year  340,  the  desire  which  all  the  nations  of  the  empire, 
one  after  another  expressed,  and  which  was  to  be  com¬ 
pletely  realized  only  after  five  centuries  and  a  half. 
Then  such  a  thought  was  new  and  very  unexpected  ; 
the  Romans  declared  it  monstrous  and  criminal.  It 
was,  indeed,  contrary  to  the  old  religion  and  the  old 
law  of  the  cities.  The  consul,  Manlius,  replied,  that  if 
such  a  proposition  should  be  accepted,  he  would  slay 
with  his  own  hand  the  first  Latin  who  should  come  to 
take  his  seat  in  the  senate  ;  then,  turning  towards  the 
altar,  he  called  upon  the  god  to  witness,  saying,  “Thou 
hast  heard,  O  Jupiter,  the  impious  words  that  have 
come  from  this  man’s  mouth.  Canst  thou  tolerate,  O 
Jupiter,  that  a  foreigner  should  come  to  sit  in  thy  sa¬ 
cred  temple  as  a  senator,  as  a  consul  ?”  Thus  Manlius 
expressed  the  old  sentiment  of  repulsion  that  separated 
the  citizen  from  the  foreigner.  He  was  the  organ  of  the 
ancient  religious  law,  which  prescribed  that  the  for¬ 
eigner  should  be  detested  by  the  men  because  he  was 
cursed  by  the  gods  of  the  city.  It  appeared  to  him  im¬ 
possible  that  a  Latin  should  be  a  senator  because  the 


510 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


place  of  meeting  for  the  senate  was  a  temple,  and  the 
Roman  gods  could  not  suffer  the  presence  of  a  foreigner 
in  their  sanctuary. 

War  followed  :  the  Latins,  being  conquered,  sur 
rendered,  —  that  is  to  say,  they  gave  up  to  the  Romans 
their  cities,  their  worships,  their  laws,  and  their  lands. 
Their  position  was  cruel.  A  consul  said  in  the  senate 
that,  if  they  did  not  wish  Rome  to  be  surrounded  by  a 
vast  desert,  the  fate  of  the  Latins  should  be  settled 
with  some  regard  to  clemency.  Livy  does  not  clearly 
explain  what  was  done.  If  we  are  to  trust  him,  the 


Latins  obtained  the  right  of  Roman  citizenship  without 
including  in  the  political  privileges  the  right  of  suffrage, 
or  in  the  civil  the  right  of  marriage.  We  may  also 
note,  that  these  new  citizens  were  not  counted  in  the 
census.  It  is  clear  that  the  senate  deceived  the  Latins 
in  giving  them  the  name  of  Roman  citizens.  This  title 
disguised  a  real  subjection,  since  the  men  who  bore  it 
had  the  obligations  of  citizens  without  the  rights.  So 
true  is  this,  that  several  Latin  cities  revolted,  in  order 
that  this  pretended  citizenship  might  be  withdrawn. 

A  century  passed,  and,  without  Livy’s  notice  of  the 
fact,  we  might  easily  discover  that  Rome  had  changed 
her  policy.  The  condition  of  the  Latins  having  the 
rights  of  citizens,  without  suffrage  and  without  connu - 
bium ,  no  longer  existed.  Rome  had  withdrawn  from 


them  the  title  of  citizens,  or,  rather,  had  done  away  with 
this  falsehood,  and  had  decided  to  restore  to  the  dif¬ 


ferent  cities  their  municipal  governments,  their  laws, 
and  their  magistracies. 

But  by  a  skilful  device  Rome  opened  a  door  which, 
narrow  as  it  was,  permitted  subjects  to  enter  the  Roman 
çity.  It  granted  to  every  Latin  who  had  been  a  magis- 
trate  in  his  native  city  the  right  to  become  a  Roman 


CHAP.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


511 


citizen  at  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  office.’  This 
time  the  gift  of  this  right  was  complete  and  without 
reserve;  suffrage,  magistracies,  census,  marriage,  pri¬ 
vate  law,  all  were  included.  Rome  resigned  itself  to 
share  with  the  foreigner  its  religion,  its  government, 
ami  its  laws;  only  its  favors  were  individual,  and  were 
addressed  not  to  entire  cities,  but  to  a  few  men  in  each 
of  them.  Rome  admitted  to  her  bosom  only  what  was 
best,  wealthiest,  and  most  estimable  in  Latium. 

This  right  of  citizenship  then  became  precious,  first, 
because  it  was  complete,  and  secondly,  because  it  was 
a  privilege.  Through  it  a  man  figured  in  the  comitia 
of  the  most  powerful  city  of  Italy;  he  might  be  consul 
and  commander  of  the  legions.  There  was  also  the 
means  of  satisfying  more  modest  ambitions;  thanks  to 
this  right,  one  might  ally  himself,  by  marriage,  to  a 
Roman  family;  or  he  might  take  up  his  abode  at  Rome, 
and  become  a  proprietor  there  ;  or  he  might  carry  on 
trade  in  Rome,  which  had  already  become  one  of  the 
first  commercial  towns  in  the  world.  One  might  enter 
the  company  of  farmers  of  the  revenue,  —  that  is  to  say, 
take  a  part  in  the  enormous  profits  which  accrued  from 
the  collection  of  the  revenue,  or  from  speculations  in 
*he  lands  of  the  ager  publicus.  Wherever  one  lived 
he  was  effectually  protected  ;  he  escaped  the  authority 
of  the  municipal  magistrate,  and  was  sheltered  from 
the  caprices  of  the  Roman  magistrates  themselves.  By 
being  a  citizen  of  Rome,  a  man  gained  honor,  wealth, 
and  security. 

The  Latins,  therefore,  became  eager  to  obtain  this 
title,  and  used  all  sorts  of  means  to  acquire  it.  One 
day,  when  Rome  wished  to  appear  a  little  severe,  she 


1  Appian,  Civil  Wars,  II.  26. 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


bSA 

found  that  twelve  thousand  of  them  had  obtained  it 
through  fraud. 

Ordinarily,  Rome  shut  her  eyes,  knowing  that  by  this 
means  her  population  increased,  and  that  the  losses  of 
^\ar  were  thus  repaired.  But  the  Latin  cities  suffered  ; 
their  richest  inhabitants  became  Roman  citizens,  and 
Latium  was  impoverished.  The  taxes,  from  which  the 
richest  were  exempt  as  Roman  citizens,  became  more 
and  more  burdensome,  and  the  contingent  of  soldiers 
that  had  to  be  furnished  to  Rome  was  every  year  more 
difficult  to  fill  up.  The  larger  the  number  of  those  who 
obtained  the  Roman  franchise,  the  harder  was  the 
lot  of  those  who  had  not  that  right.  There  came  a 
time  when  the  Latin  cities  demanded  that  this  fran¬ 
chise  should  cease  to  be  a  privilege.  The  Italian  cities, 
which,  having  been  conquered  two  centuries  before, 
were  in  nearly  the  same  condition  as  those  of  Latium, 
and  also  saw  their  richest  inhabitants  abandon  them  to 
become  Romans,  demanded  for  themselves  the  Roman 
franchise.  The  fate  of  subjects  and  allies  had  become 
all  the  less  supportable  at  this  period,  from  the  fact  that 
the  Roman  democracy  was  then  agitating  the  great 
question  of  the  agrarian  laws.  Now,  the  principle  of 
all  these  laws  was,  that  neither  subject  nor  ally  could 
be  an  owner  of  the  soil,  except  by  a  formal  act  of  the 
city,  and  that  the  greater  part  of  the  Italian  lands  be¬ 
longed  to  the  republic.  One  party  demanded,  there¬ 
fore,  that  these  lands,  which  were  nearly  all  occupied 
by  Italians,  should  be  taken  back  by  the  state,  and  dis¬ 
tributed  among  the  poor  of  Rome.  Thus  the  Italians 
were  menaced  with  general  ruin.  They  felt  keenly 
the  need  of  civil  rights,  and  they  could  only  come  into 
possession  of  these  by  becoming  Roman  citizens. 

The  war  that  followed  was  called  the  social  i car } 


CHAP.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


513 


the  allies  of  Rome  took  up  arms  that  they  might  no 
longer  be  allies,  but  might  become  Romans.  Rome, 
though  victorious,  was  still  constrained  to  grant  what 
was  demanded,  and  the  Italians  received  the  rights  ol 
citizenship.  Thenceforth  assimilated  to  the  Romans, 
they  could  vote  in  the  forum  ;  in  private  life  they  were 
governed  by  Roman  laws;  their  right  to  the  soil  was 
recognized,  and  the  Italian  lands,  as  well  as  Roman 
soil,  could  be  owned  by  them  in  fee  simple.  Then  was 
established  the  jus  Italicum:  this  was  the  law,  not  of 
the  Italian  person,  since  the  Italian  had  become  a  Ro¬ 
man,  but  of  the  Italian  soil,  which  was  susceptible  of 
ownership,  just  as  if  it  had  been  the  ager  Romanus .* 

From  that  time  all  Italy  formed  a  single  state. 
There  still  remained  the  provinces  to  enter  into  the 
Roman  unity. 

We  must  make  a  distinction  between  Greece  and 
the  provinces  of  the  west.  In  the  west  were  Gaul  and 
Spain,  which,  before  the  conquest,  knew  nothing  of 
the  real  municipal  system.  The  Romans  attempted 
to  create  this  form  of  government  among  them,  either 
thinking  it  impossible  to  govern  them  otherwise,  or 
judging  that,  in  order  gradually  to  assimilate  them  to 
the  Italian  nations,  it  would  be  necessary  to  make  them 
pass  over  the  same  route  which  the  Italians  had  fol¬ 
lowed.  Hence  it  happened  that  the  emperors  who 
suppressed  all  political  life  at  Rome,  kept  up  the  forms 
of  municipal  liberty  in  the  provinces.  Thus  cities  were 
formed  in  Gaul  ;  each  had  its  senate,  its  aristocratic 
body,  its  elective  magistrates  ;  each  had  even  its  local 
worship,  its  Genius ,  and  its  city-protecting  divinity 
nfter  the  manner  of  those  in  ancient  Greece  and  an* 

'  Thenceforth  also  called  res  mancipi.  See  Ulpian. 

33 


514 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


cient  Italy*  Now,  this  municipal  system,  thus  estab¬ 
lished,  did  not  prevent  men  from  arriving  at  the  Roman 
citizenship  ;  on  the  contrary,  it  prepared  them  for  it.  A 
gradation,  skilfully  arranged  among  these  cities,  marked 
the  steps  by  which  they  were  insensibly  to  approach 
Rome,  and  finally  to  become  assimilated  with  it. 
There  were  distinguished,  first,  the  allies,  who  had  a 
government  and  laws  of  their  own,  and  no  legal  bond 
with  Roman  citizens;  second,  the  colonies,  which  en¬ 
joyed  the  civil  rights  of  the  Romans,  without  having 
political  lights;  third,  the  cities  of  the  Italian  right,— 
that  is  to  say,  those  to  whom,  by  the  favor  of  Rome,  the 
complete  right  of  property  over  their  lands  had  been 
granted,  as  if  these  lands  had  been  in  Italy;  fourth, 
the  cities  of  the  Latin  right,  —  that  is  to  say,  those 
whose  inhabitants  could,  following  the  custom  formerly 
established  in  Latium,  become  Roman  citizens  after 
having  held  a  municipal  office.  These  distinctions  were 
so  deep,  that  between  persons  of  two  different  classes 
no  marriage  or  other  legal  relation  was  possible.  Rut 
the  emperors  took  care  that  the  cities  should  rise  in 
the  course  of  time,  and  one  after  another,  from  the 
condition  of  subjects  or  allies,  to  the  Italian  right,  from 
the  Italian  right  to  the  Latin  right.  When  a  city 
had  arrived  at  this  point,  its  principal  families  became 
Romans  one  after  another. 

Greece  entered  just  as  little  into  the  Roman  state. 
At  first  every  city  preserved  the  forms  and  machinery 
of  the  municipal  government.  At  the  moment  of  the 
conquest,  Greece  showed  a  desire  to  preserve  its  au¬ 
tonomy  ;  and  this  was  left  to  it  longer,  perhaps,  than 
it  would  have  wished.  At  the  end  of  a  few  generations 
it  aspired  to  become  Roman  ;  vanity,  ambition,  and 
interest  worked  for  this. 


s 


CHAP.  II. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


515 


The  Greeks  had  not  for  Rome  that  hatred  which  is 
usually  borne  towards  a  foreign  master.  They  admired 
it  ;  they  had  a  veneration  for  it  ;  of  their  own  accord 
they  devoted  a  worship  to  it,  and  built  temples  to  it  as 
to  a  god.  Every  city  forgot  its  protecting  divinity,  and 
worshipped  in  its  place  the  goddess  Rome  and  the  god 
Caesar  ;  the  greatest  festivals  were  for  them,  and  the 
first  magistrates  had  no  higher  duty  than  celebrating 
with  great  pomp  the  Augustan  games.  Men  thus  be¬ 
came  accustomed  to  lift  their  eyes  above  their  cities; 
they  saw  in  Rome  the  model  city,  the  true  country, 
the  prytaneum  of  all  nations.  The  city  where  one  was 
born  seemed  small.  Its  interests  no  longer  occupied 
their  minds;  the  honors  which  it  conferred  no  longer 
satisfied  their  ambition.  Men  thought  themselves  noth¬ 
ing  if  they  were  not  Roman  citizens.  Under  the  em¬ 
perors,  it  is  true,  this  title  no  longer  conferred  political 
rights  ;  but  it  offered  more  solid  advantages,  since  the 
man  who  was  clothed  with  it  acquired  at  the  same 
time  the  full  right  to  hold  property,  the  right  to  inherit, 
the  right  to  marry,  the  paternal  authority,  and  all  the 
private  rights  of  Rome.  The  laws  which  were  found 
in  each  city  were  variable  and  without  foundation  ; 
they  were  merely  tolerated.  The  Romans  despised 
them,  and  the  Greeks  had  little  respect  for  them.  In 
order  to  have  fixed  laws,  recognized  by  all  as  truly  sa¬ 
cred,  it  was  necessary  to  have  those  of  Rome. 

We  do  not  see  that  all  Greece,  or  even  a  Greek  city, 
formally  asked  for  this  right  of  citizenship,  so  much  de¬ 
sired;  but  men  worked  individually  to  acquire  it,  and 
Rome  bestowed  it  with  a  good  grace.  Some  obtained 
it  through  the  favor  of  the  emperor;  others  bought  it. 
It  was  granted  to  those  who  had  three  children,  or 
who  served  in  certain  divisions  of  the  army.  Some- 


516 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS. 


BOOK  V. 


times  to  construct  a  merchant  vessel  of  a  certain  ton¬ 
nage,  or  to  carry  grain  to  Rome,  was  sufficient  to  ob¬ 
tain  it.  An  easy  and  prompt  means  of  acquiring  it 
was  to  sell  one’s  self  as  a  slave  to  a  Roman  citizen,  for 
the  act  of  freeing  him  according  to  legal  forms  con¬ 
ferred  the  right  of  citizenship.1  One  who  had  the  title  of 
Roman  citizen  no  longer  formed  a  part  of  his  native 
city,  either  civilly  or  politically.  He  could  continue  to 
live  there,  but  he  was  considered  an  alien  ;  he  was  no 
longer  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  city,  he  no  longer 
obeyed  its  magistrates,  no  longer  supported  its  pe¬ 
cuniary  burdens.2  This  was  a  consequence  of  the  old 
principle,  which  did  not  permit  a  man  to  belong  to  two 
cities  at  the  same  time.3  It  naturally  happened  that, 
after  several  generations,  there  were  in  every  Greek 
city  quite  a  large  number  of  men,  and  these  ordinarily 
the  wealthiest,  who  recognized  neither  its  government 
nor  its  laws.  Thus  slowly,  and  as  if  by  a  natural  death, 
perished  the  municipal  system.  There  came  a  time 
when  the  city  was  a  mere  framework  that  contained 
nothing,  where  the  local  laws  applied  to  hardly  a  per¬ 
son,  where  the  municipal  judges  no  longer  had  anything 
to  adjudicate  upon. 

Finally,  when  eight  or  ten  generations  had  sighed 
for  the  Roman  franchise,  and  all  those  who  were  of  any 
account  had  obtained  it,  there  appeared  an  imperial 

1  Suetonius,  Nero ,  24.  Petronius,  57.  Ulpian,  III.  Gaius, 
I.  16,  17. 

2  He  became  an  alien  even  in  respect  to  his  own  family,  if  it 
had  not,  like  him,  the  right  of  citizenship.  He  did  not  inherit 
its  property.  Pliny,  Panegyric ,  37. 

a  Cicero,  Pro  Balbo,  28  ;  Pro  Archia,  5  ;  Pro  Ccecina ,  36. 
Cornelius  Nepos,  Atticus ,  3.  Greece  long  before  had  abandoned 
thia  principle,  but  Rome  held  faithfully  to  it. 


CHAP.  n. 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST. 


517 


decree  which  granted  it  to  all  free  men  without  dis¬ 
tinction. 

What  is  remarkable  here  is,  that  no  one  can  tell  the 
date  of  this  decree  or  the  name  of  the  prince  who  is¬ 
sued  it.  The  honor  is  given,  with  some  probability  of 
truth,  to  Caracalla,  —  that  is  to  say,  to  a  prince  who 
never  had  very  elevated  views;  and  this  is  attributed 
to  him  as  simply  a  fiscal  measure.  We  meet  in  history 
with  few  more  important  decrees  than  this.  It  abol¬ 
ished  the  distinction  which  had  existed  since  the  Ro¬ 
man  conquest  between  the  dominant  nation  and  the 
subject  peoples  ;  it  even  caused  to  disappear  a  much 
older  distinction,  which  religion  and  law  had  made  be¬ 
tween  cities.  Still  the  historians  of  that  time  took  no 
note  of  it,  and  all  we  know  of  it  we  glean  from  two 
vague  passages  of  the  jurisconsults  and  a  short  notice  in 
Dion  Cassius.1  If  this  decree  did  not  strike  contempo 

1  “  Antoninus  Pius  jus  Romance  civitatis  omnibus  subjectis 
donavit.”  Justinian,  Novels ,  78,  ch.  5.  “  In  orbe  Romano  qui 

sunt ,  ex  constituiione  imperatoris  Antonini,  cives  Romani  ejfedi 
sunt.”  Ulpian,  in  Digest ,  I.  tit.  5,  17.  It  is  known,  moreover, 
from  Spartianus,  that  Caracalla  was  called  Antoninus  in  official 
acts.  Dion  Cassius  says  that  Caracalla  gave  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  empire  the  Roman  franchise  in  order  to  make  general  the 
impost  of  tithes  on  enfranchisements  and  successions.  The  dis¬ 
tinction  between  peregrin! ,  Latins,  and  citizens  did  not  entirely 
disappear;  it  is  found  in  Ulpian  and  in  the  Code.  Indeed,  it 
appeared  natural  that  enfranchised  slaves  should  not  imme¬ 
diately  become  Roman  citizens,  but  should  pass  through  all  the 
old  grades  that  separated  servitude  from  citizenship.  We  als> 
judge  from  certain  indications  that  the  distinction  between  the 
Italian  lands  and  the  provincial  lands  still  continued  for  a  long 
time.  ( Code ,  VII.  25;  YII.  31;  X.  39.  Digest ,  L.  tit.  1.) 
Thus  the  city  of  Tyre,  in  Phoenicia,  even  later  than  Caracalla, 
enjoyed  as  a  privilege  the/ws  ltalicum.  ( Digest ,  IV.  15.)  The 
continuance  of  this  distinction  is  explained  by  the  interest  of  the 


518 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOR  V. 


raries,  and  was  not  remarked  by  those  who  then  wrote 
history,  it  is  because  the  change  of  which  it  was  the 
legal  expression  had  been  accomplished  long  before. 
The  inequality  between  citizens  and  subjects  had  been 
lessened  every  generation,  and  had  been  gradually  ef¬ 
faced.  The  decree  might  pass  unperceived  under  the 
veil  of  a  fiscal  measure  ;  it  proclaimed  and  caused  to 
pass  into  the  domain  of  law  what  was  already  an  ac¬ 
complished  fact. 

The  title  of  citizen  then  began  to  fall  into  desuetude  ; 
or,  if  it  was  still  employed,  it  was  to  designate  the  con¬ 
dition  of  a  free  man  as  opposed  to  that  of  a  slave. 
From  that  time  all  that  made  a  part  of  the  Roman  em¬ 
pire,  from  Spain  to  the  Euphrates,  formed  really  one 
people  and  a  single  state.  The  distinction  between 
cities  had  disappeared;  that  between  nations  still  ap¬ 
peared,  but  was  hardly  noticed.  All  the  inhabitants  of 
this  immense  empire  were  equally  Romans.  The  Gaul 
abandoned  his  name  of  Gaul,  and  eagerly  assumed  that 
of  Roman  ;  the  Spaniard,  the  inhabitant  of  Thrace,  or 
of  Syria,  did  the  same.  There  was  now  but  a  single 
name,  a  single  country,  a  single  government,  a  single 
code  of  laws. 

We  see  how  the  Roman  city  developed  from  age  to 
age.  At  first  it  contained  only  patricians  and  clients; 
afterwards  the  plebeian  class  obtained  a  place  there  ; 
then  came  the  Latins,  then  the  Italians,  and  finally  the 
provincials.  The  conquest  had  not  sufficed  to  work 
this  great  change  ;  the  slow  transformation  of  ideas, 
the  prudent  but  uninterrupted  concessions  of  the  em¬ 
perors,  and  the  eagerness  of  individual  interests  had 
been  necessary.  Then  all  the  cities  gradually  disap- 

emperors,  who  did  not  wish  to  be  deprived  of  the  tribute  which 
the  provincial  lands  paid  into  the  treasury. 


CHAP.  III. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


519 


geared,  and  the  Roman  city,  the  last  one  left,  w*.s  it¬ 
self  so  transformed  that  it  became  the  union  of  a  dozen 
great  nations  under  a  single  master.  Thus  fell  the  mu¬ 
nicipal  system. 

It  does  not  belong  to  our  plan  to  tell  by  what  system 
of  government  this  was  replaced,  or  to  inquire  if  this 
change  was  at  first  more  advantageous  than  unfortu¬ 
nate  for  the  nations.  We  must  stop  at  the  moment 
when  the  old  social  forms  which  antiquity  had  estab¬ 
lished  were  forever  effaced. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Christianity  changes  the  Conditions  of  Government. 

The  victory  of  Christianity  marks  the  end  of  ancient  • 
society.  With  the  new  religion  this  social  transforma¬ 
tion,  which  we  saw  begun  six  or  seven  centuries  earlier, 
was  completed. 

To  understand  how  much  the  principles  and  the  es¬ 
sential  rules  of  politics  were  then  changed,  we  need 
only  recollect  that  ancient  society  had  been  established 
by  an  old  religion  whose  principal  dogma  was  that 
every  god  protected  exclusively  a  single  family  or  a 
single  city,  and  existed  only  for  that.  This  was  the 
time  of  the  domestic  gods  and  the  city-protecting  di¬ 
vinities.  This  religion  had  produced  laws;  the  rela¬ 
tions  among  men — property,  inheritance,  legal  pro¬ 
ceedings —  all  were  regulated,  not  by  the  principles  of 
natural  equity,  but  by  the  dogmas  of  this  religion,  and 
with  a  view  to  the  requirements  of  its  worship.  It  was 
this  religion  that  had  established  a  government  among 


520 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V. 


men;  that  of  the  father  in  the  family;  that  of  the  king 
or  magistrate  in  the  city.  All  had  come  from  religion, 
that  is  to  say,  from  the  opinion  that  man  had  enter¬ 
tained  of  the  divinity.  Religion,  law,  and  government 
were  confounded,  and  had  been  but  a  single  thing  un¬ 
der  three  different  aspects. 

We  have  sought  to  place  in  a  clear  light  this  social 
system  of  the  ancients,  where  religion  was  absolute 
master,  both  in  public  and  private  life;  where  the  state 
was  a  religious  community,  the  king  a  pontiff,  the  ma¬ 
gistrate  a  priest,  and  the  law  a  sacred  formula  ;  where 
patriotism  was  piety,  and  exile  excommunication  ; 
where  individual  liberty  was  unknown;  where  man 
was  enslaved  to  the  state  through  his  soul,  his  body, 
and  his  property;  where  the  notions  of  law  and  of  duty, 
of  justice  and  of  affection,  were  bounded  within  the 
limits  of  the  city;  where  human  association  was  neces¬ 
sarily  confined  within  a  certain  circumference  around 
a  prytaneum  ;  and  where  men  saw  no  possibility  of 
founding  larger  societies.  Such  were  the  character¬ 
istic  traits  of  the  Greek  and  Italian  cities  during  the 
first  period  of  their  history. 

But  little  by  little,  as  we  have  seen,  society  became 
modified.  Changes  took  place  in  government  and  in 
laws  at  the  same  time  as  in  religious  ideas.  Already 
in  the  fifth  century  which  preceded  Christianity,  the 
alliance  was  no  longer  so  close  between  religion  on  the 
one  hand  and  law  and  politics  on  the  other.  The  ef¬ 
forts  of  the  oppressed  classes,  the  overthrow  of  the 
sacerdotal  class,  the  labors  of  philosophers,  the  progress 
of  thought,  had  unsettled  the  ancient  principles  of  hu¬ 
man  association.  Men  had  made  incessant  efforts  tc 
free  themselves  from  the  thraldom  of  this  old  religion, 
in  which  they  could  no  longer  believe  ;  law  and  politics. 


s 


CHAP.  Ill. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


621 


as  well  as  morals,  in  the  course  of  time  were  freed  from 
its  fetters. 

But  this  species  of  divorce  came  from  the  disappear¬ 
ance  of  the  ancient  religion;  if  law  and  politics  began 
to  be  a  little  more  independent,  it  was  because  men 
ceased  to  have  religious  beliefs.  If  society  was  no 
longer  governed  by  religion,  it  was  especially  because 
this  religion  no  longer  had  any  power.  But  there 
came  a  day  when  the  religious  sentiment  recovered 
life  and  vigor,  and  when,  under  the  Christian  form,  be¬ 
lief  regained  its  empire  over  the  soul.  Were  men  not 
then  destined  to  see  the  reappearance  of  the  ancient 
confusion  of  government  and  the  priesthood,  of  faith 
and  the  law  ? 

With  Christianity  not  only  was  the  religious  senti¬ 
ment  revived,  but  it  assumed  a  higher  and  less  material 
exjn-ession.  Whilst  previously  men  had  made  for  them¬ 
selves  gods  of  the  human  soul,  or  of  the  great  forces  of 
nature,  they  now  began  to  look  upon  God  as  really  for¬ 
eign  by  his  essence,  from  human  nature  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  the  world  on  the  other.  The  divine 
Being  was  placed  outside  and  above  physical  nature. 
Whilst  previously  every  man  had  made  a  god  for  him¬ 
self,  and  there  were  as  many  of  them  as  there  were 
families  and  cities,  God  now  appeared  as  a  unique,  im¬ 
mense,  universal  being,  alone  animating  the  worlds, 
alone  able  to  supply  the  need  of  adoration  that  is  in 
man.  Religion,  instead  of  being,  as  formerly  among 
the  nations  of  Greece  and  Italy,  little  more  than  an  as- 
semblage  of  practices,  a  series  of  rites  which  men  re¬ 
peated  without  having  any  idea  of  them,  a  succession 
of  formulas  which  often  were  no  longer  understood  be¬ 
cause  the  language  had  grown  old,  a  tradition  which 
had  been  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  and  which  owed 


522 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V. 


its  sacred  character  to  its  antiquity  alone,  —  was  now  a 
collection  of  doctrines,  and  a  great  object  proposed  to 
faith.  It  was  no  longer  exterior;  it  took  up  its  abode 
especially  in  the  thoughts  of  man.  It  was  no  longer 
matter;  it  became  spirit.  Christianity  changed  the 
nature  and  the  form  of  adoration.  Man  no  longer  of¬ 
fered  God  food  and  drink.  Prayer  was  no  longer  a 
form  of  incantation  ;  it  was  an  act  of  faith  and  a  humble 
petition.  The  soul  sustained  another  relation  with  the 
divinity  ;  the  fear  of  the  gods  was  replaced  by  the  love 
of  God. 

Christianity  introduced  other  new  ideas.  It  was  not 
the  domestic  religion  of  any  family,  the  national  reli¬ 
gion  of  any  city,  or  of  any  race.  It  belonged  neither 
to  a  caste  nor  to  a  corporation.  From  its  first  appear¬ 
ance  it  called  to  itself  the  whole  human  race.  Christ 
said  to  his  disciples,  “  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature.” 

This  principle  was  so  extraordinary,  and  so  unex¬ 
pected,  that  the  first  disciples  hesitated  for  a  moment; 
we  may  see  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  that  several  of 
them  refused  at  first  to  propagate  the  new  doctrine 
outside  the  nation  with  which  it  had  originated.  These 
disciples  thought,  like  the  ancient  Jews,  that  the  God 
of  the  Jews  would  not  accept  adoration  from  foreign¬ 
ers;  like  the  Romans  and  the  Greeks  of  ancient  times, 
they  believed  that  every  race  had  its  god,  that  to  propa¬ 
gate  the  name  and  worship  of  this  god  was  to  give  up 
one’s  own  good  and  special  protector,  and  that  such  a 
work  was  contrary  at  the  same  time  to  duty  and  to  in¬ 
terest.  But  Peter  replied  to  these  disciples,  “God  gave 
the  gentiles  the  like  gift  as  he  did  unto  us.”  St.  Paul 
loved  to  repeat  this  grand  principle  on  all  occasions, 
and  in  every  kind  of  form.  “  God  had  opened  the  door 


CHAP.  m. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


623 


of  faith  unto  the  gentiles.”  “Is  he  the  God  of  the 
Jews,  only?  Is  he  not  also  of  the  gentiles?”  “We 
are  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether  we  be  Jews  or 
gentiles.” 

In  all  this  there  was  something  quite  new.  For, 
everywhere,  in  the  first  ages  of  humanity,  the  divinity 
had  been  imagined  as  attaching  himself  especially  to 
one  race.  The  Jews  had  believed  in  the  God  of  the 
Jews  ;  the  Athenians  in  the  Athenian  Pallas  ;  the  Ro¬ 
mans  in  Jupiter  Capitolinus.  The  right  to  practise  a 
worship  had  been  a  privilege. 

The  foreigner  had  been  repulsed  from  the  temple  ; 
one  not  a  Jew  could  not  enter  the  temple  of  the  Jews  ; 
the  Lacedaemonian  had  not  the  right  to  invoke  the 
Athenian  Pallas.  It  is  just  to  say,  that,  in  the  five  cen¬ 
turies  which  preceded  Christianity,  all  who  thought 
were  struggling  against  these  narrow  rules.  Philoso¬ 
phy  had  often  taught,  since  Anaxagoras,  that  the  god 
of  the  universe  received  the  homage  of  all  men,  without 
distinction.  The  religion  of  Eleusis  had  admitted  the 
initiated  from  all  cities.  The  religion  of  Cybele,  of 
Serapis,  and  some  others,  had  accepted,  without  dis¬ 
tinction,  worshippers  from  all  nations.  The  Jews  had 
begun  to  admit  the  foreigner  to  their  religion  ;  the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  had  admitted  him  into  their 
cities.  Christianity,  coming  after  all  this  progress  in 
thought  and  institutions,  presented  to  the  adoration  of 
all  men  a  single  God,  a  universal  God,  a  God  who  be¬ 
longed  to  all,  who  had  no  chosen  people,  and  who  made 
no  distinction  in  races,  families,  or  states. 

For  this  God  there  were  no  longer  strangers.  The 
stranger  no  longer  profaned  the  temple,  no  longer 
tainted  the  sacrifice  by  his  presence.  The  temple  was 
open  to  all  who  believed  in  God.  The  priesthood 


i)  24 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


ceased  to  be  hereditary,  because  religion  was  no  longer 
a  patrimony.  The  worship  was  no  longer  kept  secret  ; 
the  rites,  the  prayers,  the  dogmas  were  no  longer  con¬ 
cealed.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  thenceforth  religious 
instruction,  which  was  not  only  given,  but  which  was 
offered,  which  was  carried  to  those  who  were  the  far¬ 
thest  aivay,  and  which  sought  out  the  most  indifferent. 
The  spirit  of  propagandism  replaced  the  law  of  ex¬ 
clusion. 

From  this  great  consequences  flowed,  as  well  for  the 
relations  between  nations  as  for  the  government  of 
states. 

Between  nations  religion  no  longer  commanded 
hatred  ;  it  no  longer  made  it  the  citizen’s  duty  to 
detest  the  foreigner;  its  very  essence,  on  the  contrary, 
was  to  teach  him  that  towards  the  stranger,  towards 
the  enemy,  he  owed  the  duties  of  justice,  and  even  of 
benevolence.  The  barriers  between  nations  or  races 
were  thus  thrown  down  ;  the  pomœrium  disappeared 
“Christ,”  says  the  apostle,  “hath  broken  down  the 
middle  wall  of  partition  between  us.”  “  But  now  are 
they  many  members,”  he  also  says,  “yet  but  one 
body.”  “There  is  neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  circumcision 
nor  uncircumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free  : 
but  Christ  is  all,  and  in  all.” 

The  people  were  also  taught  that  they  were  all  de¬ 
scended  from  the  same  common  father.  With  the  unity 
of  God,  the  unity  of  the  human  race  also  appeared  to 
men’s  minds  ;  and  it  was  thenceforth  a  religious  neces¬ 
sity  to  forbid  men  to  hate  each  other. 

As  to  the  government  of  the  state,  we  cannot  say 
that  Christianity  essentially  altered  that,  precisely  be¬ 
cause  it  did  not  occupy  itself  with  the  state.  In  the 
ancient  ages,  religion  and  the  state  made  but  one  ;  every 


CHAP.  III. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


525 


people  adored  its  own  god,  and  every  god  governed  his 
own  people  ;  the  same  code  regulated  the  relations 
among  men,  and  their  duties  towards  the  gods  of  the 
city.  Religion  then  governed  the  state,  and  designated 
its  chiefs  by  the  voice  of  the  lot,  or  by  that  of  the  auspices. 
The  state,  in  its  turn,  interfered  with  the  domain  of  the 
conscience,  and  punished  every  infraction  of  the  rites 
and  the  worship  of  the  city.  Instead  of  this,  Christ 
teaches  that  his  kingdom  is  not  of  this  world.  He 
separates  religion  from  government.  Religion,  being 
no  longer  of  the  earth,  now  interferes  the  least  possible 
in  terrestrial  affairs.  Christ  adds,  “Render  to  Cæsar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar’s,  and  to  God  the  things  that 
are  God’s.”  It  is  the  first  time  that  God  and  the  state 
are  so  clearly  distinguished.  For  Caesar  at  that  period 
was  still  the  pontifex  maximus ,  the  chief  and  the  prin¬ 
cipal  organ  of  the  Roman  religion  ;  he  was  the  guardian 
and  the  interpreter  of  beliefs.  He  held  the  worship 
and  the  dogmas  in  his  hands.  Even  his  person  was 
sacred  and  divine,  for  it  was  a  peculiarity  of  the  policy 
of  the  emperors  that,  wishing  to  recover  the  attributes 
of  ancient  royalty,  they  were  careful  not  to  forget  the 
divine  character  which  antiquity  had  attached  to  the 
king-pontiffs  and  to  the  priest-founders.  But  now 
Christ  breaks  the  alliance  which  paganism  and  the  em¬ 
pire  wished  to  renew.  He  proclaims  that  religion  is  no 
longer  the  state,  and  that  to  obey  Cæsar  is  no  longer 
the  same  thing  as  to  obey  God. 

Christianity  completes  the  overthrow  of  the  local 
worship  ;  it  extinguishes  the  prytanea,  and  complete¬ 
ly  destroys  the  city-protecting  divinities.  It  does 
more  ;  it  refuses  to  assume  the  empire  which  these  wor¬ 
ships  had  exercised  over  civil  society.  It  professes  that 
between  the  state  and  itself  there  is  nothing  in  common. 


526 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V. 


It  separates  what  all  antiquity  had  confounded.  We 
may  remark,  moreover,  that  during  three  centuries  the 
new  religion  lived  entirely  beyond  the  action  of  the 
state;  it  knew  how  to  dispense  with  state  protection, 
and  even  to  struggle  against  it.  These  three  centuries 
established  an  abyss  between  the  domain  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  and  the  domain  of  religion  ;  and,  as  the  recol¬ 
lection  of  this  period  could  not  be  effaced,  it  followed 
that  this  distinction  became  a  plain  and  incontestable 
truth,  which  the  efforts  even  of  a  part  of  the  clergy 
could  not  eradicate. 

This  principle  was  fertile  in  great  results.  On  one 
hand,  politics  became  definitively  freed  from  the  strict 
rules  which  the  ancient  religion  had  traced,  and  could 
govern  men  without  having  to  bend  to  sacred  usages, 
without  consulting  the  auspices  or  the  oracles,  without 
conforming  all  acts  to  the  beliefs  and  requirements  of  a 
worship.  Political  action  was  freer  ;  no  other  authority 
than  that  of  the  'moral  law  now  impeded  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  the  state  was  more  completely  master  in 
certain  things,  its  action  was  also  more  limited.  A 
complete  half  of  man  had  been  freed  from  its  control. 
Christianity  taught  that  only  a  part  of  man  belonged  to 
society  ;  that  he  was  bound  to  it  by  his  body  and  by  his 
material  interests;  that  when  subject  to  a  tyrant,  it 
was  his  duty  to  submit  ;  that  as  a  citizen  of  a  republic, 
he  ought  to  give  his  life  for  it,  but  that,  in  what  re¬ 
lated  to  his  soul,  he  was  free,  and  was  bound  only  to 
God. 

Stoicism  had  already  marked  this  separation  ;  it  had 
restored  man  to  himself,  and  had  founded  liberty  of 
conscience.  But  that  which  was  merely  the  effort  of 
the  energy  of  a  courageous  sect,  Christianity  made  a 
universal  and  unchangeable  rule  for  succeeding  genera* 


CHAP.  m. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


527 


tions;  what  was  only  the  consolation  of  a  few,  it  made 
the  common  good  of  humanity. 

If,  now,  we  recollect  what  has  been  said  above  on 
the  omnipotence  of  the  states  among  the  ancients,— 
if  we  bear  in  mind  how  far  the  city,  in  the  name  of  its 
sacred  character  and  of  religion,  which  was  inherent  in 
it,  exercised  an  absolute  empire, —  we  shall  see  that  this 
new  principle  was  the  source  whence  individual  lib¬ 
erty  flowed. 

The  mind  once  freed,  the  greatest  difficulty  was  over¬ 
come,  and  liberty  was  compatible  with  social  order. 

Sentiments  and  manners,  as  well  as  politics,  were  then 
changed.  The  idea  which  men  had  of  the  duties  of 
the  citizen  were  modified.  The  first  duty  no  longer 
consisted  in  giving  one’s  time,  one’s  strength,  one’s  life  to 
the  state.  Politics  and  war  were  no  longer  the  whole 
of  man  ;  all  the  virtues  were  no  longer  comprised  in 
patriotism,  for  the  soul  no  longer  had  a  country.  Man 
felt  that  he  had  other  obligations  besides  that  of  living 
and  dying  for  the  city.  Christianity  distinguished  the 
private  from  the  public  virtues.  By  giving  less  honor 
to  the  latter,  it  elevated  the  former;  it  placed  God,  the 
family,  the  human  individual  above  country,  the  neigh¬ 
bor  above  the  city. 

Law  was  also  changed  in  its  nature.  Among  all 
ancient  nations  law  had  been  subject  to,  and  had  re¬ 
ceived  all  its  rules  from,  religion.  Among  the  Persians, 
the  PI  in  dus,  the  Jews,  the  Greeks,  the  Italians,  and  the 
Gauls,  the  law  had  been  contained  in  the  sacred  books 
or  in  religious  traditions,  and  thus  every  religion  had 
made  laws  after  its  own  image.  Christianity  is  the  first 
religion  that  did  not  claim  to  be  the  source  of  law.  It 
occupied  itself  with  the  duties  of  men,  not  with  their 
interests.  Men  saw  it  regulate  neither  the  laws  of 


528 


MUNICIPAL  REGIME  DISAPPEARS.  BOOK  V 


property,  nor  the  order  of  succession,  nor  obligations, 
nor  legal  proceedings.  It  placed  itself  outside  the  law, 
and  outside  all  things  purely  terrestrial.  Law  was  in¬ 
dependent  ;  it  could  draw  its  rules  from  nature,  from 
the  human  conscience,  from  the  powerful  idea  of  the 
just  that  is  in  men’s  minds.  It  could  develop  in  com¬ 
plete  liberty  ;  could  be  reformed  and  improved  without 
obstacle  ;  could  follow  the  progress  of  morals,  and  could 
conform  itself  to  the  interests  and  social  needs  of  every 
generation. 

The  happy  influence  of  the  new  idea  is  easily  seen  in 
the  history  of  Roman  law.  During  several  centuries 
preceding  the  triumph  of  Christianity,  Roman  law  had 
already  been  striving  to  disengage  itself  from  reli¬ 
gion,  and  to  approach  natural  equity  ;  but  it  proceeded 
only  by  shifts  and  devices,  which  enervated  and  en¬ 
feebled  its  moral  authority.  The  work  of  regenerating 
legislation,  announced  by  the  Stoic  philosophers,  pur¬ 
sued  by  the  noble  efforts  of  Roman  jurisconsults,  out¬ 
lined  by  the  artifices  and  expedients  of  the  pretor, 
could  not  completely  succeed  except  by  favor  of  the 
independence  which  the  new  religion  allowed  to  the 
law.  We  can  see,  as  Christianity  gained  ground,  that 
the  Roman  codes  admitted  new  rules  no  longer  by 
subterfuges,  but  openly  and  without  hesitation.  The 
domestic  penates  having  been  overthrown,  and  the 
sacred  fires  extinguished,  the  ancient  constitution  of 
the  family  disappeared  forever,  and  with  it  the  rules 
that  had  flowed  from  this  source.  The  father  had  lost 
the  absolute  authority  which  his  priesthood  had  former¬ 
ly  given  him,  and  preserved  only  that  which  nature 
itself  had  conferred  upon  him  for  the  good  of  the  child. 
The  wife,  whom  the  old  religion  placed  in  a  position 
inferior  to  the  husband,  became  morally  his  equal.  The 


s 


.  hap.  in. 


CHRISTIANITY. 


529 


laws  of  property  were  essentially  altered;  the  sacred 
landmarks  disappeared  from  the  fields  ;  the  right  of 
property  no  longer  flowed  from  religion,  but  from  labor  ; 
its  acquisition  became  easier,  and  the  formalities  of  the 
ancient  law  were  definitively  abolished. 

Thus,  by  the  single  fact  that  the  family  no  longer 
had  its  domestic  religion ,  its  constitution  and  its  laws 
were  transformed  ;  so,  too,  from  the  single  fact  that  the 
state  no  longer  had  its  official  religion,  the  rules  for 
the  government  of  men  were  forever  changed. 

Our  study  must  end  at  this  limit,  which  separates 
ancient  from  modern  polities.  We  have  written  the 
history  of  a  belief.  It  was  established,  and  human 
society  was  constituted.  It  was  modified,  and  society 
underwent  a  series  of  revolutions.  It  disappeared,  and 
society  changed  its  character.  Such  was  the  law  of 
ancient  times. 


84 


s 


